Melee, Money, and Costume Equality
By
AmazingMOO,
Posted on: 2012-02-23 22:55 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I wouldnt mind seeing Spines/Thorns adapted to a fully ranged blast set.
Or an Air/Stormy blast set.
Or an Earth/Stone blast set.
Maybe a Heavy Munitions set (rockets, grenades, bombs) or a bladed weapons ranged set (shuriken, daggers and such)
I imagine we are going to get a Laser Pew Pew Pistol blast set around the time we are getting the Retro Sci Fi pack.
let's see:
staff fighting - melee
dark control - ranged
beast mastery - sorta both i guess depending whether you're the pet or the master
titan weapons - melee
beam rifle - ranged
time manipulation - ranged?
street justice - melee
darkness affinity - ranged?
dark assault - ranged
that's relatively recent powersets.
2 obviously ranged.
3 questionable, mostly ranged.
3 melee.
How's that in any way favoritism toward melee?
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You forgot Beast Mastery, where we literally get "Shoot the bird" in the form of call hawk.
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Originally Posted by bpphantom
I'd love to see ideas for more ranged sets that aren't just recolored existing sets...
[snip] ...They could possibly start mixing it up with Shoot Bunchastuff and include some powers from all of the above. But otherwise, what's left? Honestly. I'd like to know what people want to shoot at other people that we can't already. |
you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you <3
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I said that half in jest but yeah, seems like a really obvious direction to go. Especially with the observation that people really like different weapons, and they are designing raygun pistols... which I guess you can give to dual pistols of course, but would really work well for a raygun blaster set of some sort.|
Originally Posted by warden_de_dios
I imagine we are going to get a Laser Pew Pew Pistol blast set around the time we are getting the Retro Sci Fi pack.
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I like Winterminal's suggestions though. And a full set of "bee blast/hawk blast" type blast attacks might also be interesting.
Another possibility is crossbows/crossbow style pistols. Possibly in combination with thrown bladed weapons or something.
For that matter, if a blaster martial arts secondary makes sense (and it really does), why not a blaster bladed secondary of some sort? Nice pairing with bow or gun primary, for a kind of 3 Musketeers blaster?
my lil RWZ Challenge vid
I personally enjoy melee sets way more than blast sets, but I wouldn't be bothered if all the next few sets that came out were all ranged. There's plenty of characters for me to run around Paragon and the Rogue Isles with before I get bored 
That being said, there are still plenty of sets the devs can make, quite a few already mentioned.
Earth Blast / Manipulation
Wind / Storm Blast / Manipulation
Thrown Weapons (knives, shuriken)
Martial Mastery
Laser Blast (with many attacks designed to use long, narrow cones to simulate the beam boring through the target and hitting the next)
An all ranged version of Spines.
Water Blast / Manipulation
With some of these sets, the asthetics of the wepon models and the animations are all that's necessary, while with others there may be a need to design unique mechanics within them to set them apart from other sets besides what the blast set represents.
PROBLEM: Melee weapons are hard to justify because each weapon is used only for a couple of sets.
SOLUTION: Diversification! Just let any set use any weapon.
I will totally group with the guy who does dual blades with a pair of railroad crossing signs.
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Originally Posted by bpphantom
I'd love to see ideas for more ranged sets that aren't just recolored existing sets. We have:
Shoot energy Shoot darkness Shoot radiation Shoot pychic Shoot pistols Shoot rifle Shoot laser gun Shoot fire Shoot ice Shoot lightning Shoot arrows Shoot sound They could possibly start mixing it up with Shoot Bunchastuff and include some powers from all of the above. But otherwise, what's left? Honestly. I'd like to know what people want to shoot at other people that we can't already. |
Elemental blast [different damage type attacks! would love this!]
Beast blast [we now have some powers for it so make it happen!]
Gravity blast [a set made up of propel type powers]
Throwing discs
Ancient blast [sand blast etc!]
Rock blast
Boomerang blast
Ones off the top of my head
@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!
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"Ranged," short for "Ranged Damage," covers an actual category of power sets used in Blaster and Corruptor Primaries, and Defender Secondaries. Though many Control and Buff/Debuff powers can be performed "at range," they do not fall into the "Ranged (Damage)" category.|
Originally Posted by Party_Kake
let's see:
staff fighting - melee dark control - Control beast mastery - Pets titan weapons - melee beam rifle - ranged time manipulation - Buff/Debuff street justice - melee darkness affinity - Buff/Debuff dark assault - Assault (exclusive to Dominators) that's relatively recent powersets. 1 obviously ranged. 1 Control 1 Pets 2 Buff/Debuff (And Affinity is a bit of a stretch as "new") 1 Assault 3 melee |
I have edited your post to show the actual categories of the power sets you listed, and melee is still the front runner.
@Winter. Because I'm Winter. Period.
I am a blaster first, and an alt-oholic second.
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And 4 of those categories are clearly ranged, even after you seperate them.|
Originally Posted by Winterminal
"Ranged," short for "Ranged Damage," covers an actual category of power sets used in Blaster and Corruptor Primaries, and Defender Secondaries. Though many Control and Buff/Debuff powers can be performed "at range," they do not fall into the "Ranged (Damage)" category.
I have edited your post to show the actual categories of the power sets you listed, and melee is still the front runner. |
I can divide Melee into multiple categories as well.
Titan weapons is clearly a massive burst damage melee aoe set.
Street Justice is a combo-based melee set.
Staff Fighting is based on its own mechanic, and by the confessions of the developers was designed as Titan-Weapons "lite" from the beginning and ended up like it is now. It's noteworthy for being a potential Stalker set.
Pitting everything that's "melee" in one group is fallacious. Each set is meant to stand on its own. What would you prefer? That the numbers be closer to even? It's 3.
three!
You'll note I only looked at powersets created after freedom was launched. There are reasons for this.
1. They're recent, thus noteworthy.
2. That was a huge deal and stuff got shook up.
3. A lot of those old sets were designed all at once and probably wouldn't have been made if everything was done one powerset at a time, thus they really shouldn't be compared on a one-to-one basis against the new stuff.
I could go back and look at each individual set but that would not serve any purpose. Asserting that more powerset options somehow automatically makes an archetype better is wrong. Masterminds have the least options out of any non-epic archetype and they're easily the best. (yes, that's my opinion, and no, you're not going to change it by arguing with me) You want more ranged damage sets? What would they be? You have to come up with something before you can complain about it not being there.
You want male-only costume options? Figure out what they are, things that wouldn't be wanted or needed for females.
Same applies here. You want more ranged sets? Figure out what they should be, and suggest those.
There have already been calls out for whip assault. Hell, if that had the range of a ranged damage set it would work great! It doesn't have to be an Indiana Jones whip, it could be a fiery whip, or an energy whip, or a Tentacle, or if you're feeling silly, a ball of twine.
Players have suggested psychic weapons. Perhaps a psychic gun? I think I remember stealing one of those on a rogue alignment mission.
Beam rifle was cool but perhaps we could have a laser pistol? dual laser pistols?
Shoulder-mounted rocket launchers?
Nanotech-powered portable launchers? It would be awesome to just plop down a pirate cannon and set the fuse while the enemy's paralyzed with fear as the gun is about to fire.
The point is you have to come up with some kind of suggestion about what you're really looking for in the form of a ranged damage attack. Something that's as cool as Titan Weapons (which players were really excited for) or Street Justice (which has Batman written all over it) or Staff Fighting (which is just incredibly badass on a stalker, since that ENTIRE CLASS was cheated out of Titan Weapons which is a whole nother issue)
Or perhaps you're upset because "Titan Weapons" is so generic that it rules out the possibility of it being revisited in the future as a different powerset. Not so.
I imagine that the developers have already been bombarded with requests for:
Titan Guns
Using the momentum mechanic, this powerset would contain attacks for chainguns, rocket launchers, handheld siege missile platforms, oversized sniper rifles, and other obscenely oversized weaponry that mere mortals should not possess the power to lift, let alone wield. Its attacks would be damaging on a massive scale, and once the weapons are properly warmed up, they unleash hell on a massive scale, tearing into your enemies with abandon. Like Titan weapons, you must hit your target to gain momentum, otherwise it takes time to aim again and make sure you're on target.
Granted, even if that set were being designed first, I imagine it would take a lot more work to deliver to the fans, so we'd have to wait a bit longer, but hell, it would be worth it.
you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you <3
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Kitten Tossing!
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Originally Posted by EU_Damz
Elemental blast [different damage type attacks! would love this!]
Beast blast [we now have some powers for it so make it happen!] |
my lil RWZ Challenge vid
Melee ATs, specifically (for me at any rate) Scrappers/Brutes/(and in i22) Stalkers, just have the right mix of survivability and damage and feel more like a comic book superhero/villain.
Blaster I think can get there, if they were just willing to break the cottage rule. Take a power from the secondaries, and give them a armor toggle of some sort to stack with the epic armor toggle, vary it between the sets.
Next, keep Defiance, but increase it to Tier3/Tier2, so you can get some multiple attacks off. It's not quite mez protection, but those two changes (I think anyways) would make Blasters feel tougher and more comic book level without just giving them outright mez protection.
Not to mention some of those Tier 1 abilities just suck to use
There is another problem with Blasters (imo) but I'll get to that problem in a bit.
Dominators can be wicked as seen by many, but they're not the button smasher the melee ATs are, but in my experience with Doms, they can be made to feel quite comic book superhero/villain. Just takes a bit of work.
Corrs/Defenders can get to that level even without mez protection (in my experience with them anyways), my problem with them is the one same problem I have with blasters:
MOST RANGED SETS ARE JUST BORING TO PLAY!
You stand there and shoot stuff in the same stance. :/ Even with the added animations, they were basically just repeated through the same animations in the same sets at times.
This is why I love Dual Pistols, it's animations feel like a melee set in action. Sadly it's ST damage is so sad, no to mention the redraw it causes with some sets, that *Sigh*
And personally I don't want to see the animations changed. I love the animations! Taking a bit off them would likely ruin the set, but they don't want to seem to just up it's damage either. :/
(Note to any devs reading: Giving Time Crawl a way better -Regen ability would fix all my problems with DP 
)
Trollers, I think it's their early game that really gets people meh to them. They just don't do lots of damage untill late game. But then when built for it, they can really shine.
Which is also maybe some of the problems with why melee ATs overshadow the others. Melee ATs on SOs or basic IOs feel okay to most people. The others it's a waiting game in levels, and then putting some IOs into the mix.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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Not how it works. If you roll up a new character, there will be six playstyles to choose from, representing each of the different types of powers. Tank, Melee Damage, Ranged Damage, Crowd Control, Support, and Pets. Those are the six overall types of powers they can make for players; armor sets, melee damage sets, ranged damage sets, enemy control sets, ally support sets, and personal pet based sets. Just because you stand far away doesn't necessarily mean it's Ranged Damage. That is why Controllers, a control/support based AT, have Fire Control and Thermal Radiation as opposed to Fire Blast.|
Originally Posted by Party_Kake
And 4 of those categories are clearly ranged, even after you seperate them.
I can divide Melee into multiple categories as well. Titan weapons is clearly a massive burst damage melee aoe set. Street Justice is a combo-based melee set. Staff Fighting is based on its own mechanic, and by the confessions of the developers was designed as Titan-Weapons "lite" from the beginning and ended up like it is now. It's noteworthy for being a potential Stalker set. |
Pitting everything that's "Ranged" in one category is fallacious. When there's a powerset dedicated to control, or support, or command of your pets that requires you to be in melee range for a majority of it's powers, then we'll another category for melee. But as it stands, all melee powersets we currently have are "Melee Damage."
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You can use your Primary's Tier 1 and 2 abilities. It's the Secondary that you're restricted to using Tier 1.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
Next, keep Defiance, but increase it to Tier3/Tier2, so you can get some multiple attacks off. It's not quite mez protection, but those two changes (I think anyways) would make Blasters feel tougher and more comic book level without just giving them outright mez protection.
Not to mention some of those Tier 1 abilities just suck to use |
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I know, I meant the tier 1 in the secondary is limited to near uselessness |
Originally Posted by Xzero45
You can use your Primary's Tier 1 and 2 abilities. It's the Secondary that you're restricted to using Tier 1.
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But there are some tier 2 abilities int he secondary I may find useful (all dependent ont he set choosen of course).
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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This rationale doesn't really work so well. There are many, many melee sets that share the same secondary effects. Hell, most of them do. The only ones that actually have unique secondaries are Fire (DoT), Ice (Slow), Dark (-tohit), Energy (Disorient) Electric (-End and sleep), and Spines (DoT, Slow and Immobilize).|
Originally Posted by Winterminal
Finally, the number of available options has depleted. When designing a power set, it should be unique in terms of both graphical appearance and secondary effects. Graphics are more flexible: there are obviously tons of possible unique animation effects that have not made an appearance in the game. However, what a power does is harder to make unique, as most power sets in any given category cover the multiple secondary effects in the game (Dark's -To Hit, Ice's Slow & -Rech, Rad's -DEF, etc.).
Personally, I would be fine in getting a brand new, completely graphically unique power set that also does -To Hit, same as Dark. However, from a design stand point, I understand not wanting to take the risk at making one of your older power sets obsolete. |
Battle Axe, Dual Blades, Martial Arts, Stone Melee, Street Justice, Super Strength, War Mace, Titan Weapons, Staff Fighting, Broadsword, Katana, Ninja Blade, Kinetic and Claws are all just mixes of Knockback/up/down, Disorients, Defense debuffs etc.
Kinetic and Claws are somewhat special cases, Claws' "secondary effect" is an end/recharge discount, but it's "debuff" type effects aren't unique at all. Kinetics has a unique effect, but only while Power Siphon is active, otherwise it just uses the typical generic effects.
I don't see why Ranged sets all have to have unique debuffs associated with them, when most melee sets don't.
@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too
For me, the solution isn't that we need more ranged sets (mostly... I would like to see a munitions based control set, using rocket and grenade launchers and such, and I'd love a martial arts or dual blades secondary on my blasters) but rather that we need more ways to use the ranged sets we have. Like a poster said earlier, people like weapons. If they could improve power customization yet again, and allow us to change out our existing animations and emission points on non-weapon ranged sets to use those same powers with a variety of guns and stuff (and the same for vice versa, for instance allowing Assault Rifle attacks to be shot from the "hands" and such), we could completely revitalize existing ranged sets into a whole new "feel" for character concepts. I'd love to use a pair of pistol flamethrowers for a Fire Blaster, or a bow that shoots Lightning Bolts (D&D cartoon anyone?), or take the Archery power effects and twist them 90 degrees and mount them to a crossbow using Assault Rifle animations (Actually I think the only one that would need to rotate would be Fistful of Arrows). Similarly I'd love to take my Dual Pistol attacks and attach them to Eyebeam attack animations and shoot flaming bullets out of my robotic eyes (Ghost Rider did something similar recently if people have seen the sequel, or even the commercial). I'd love to heft one of those gimungous Goldbricker sonic assault cannons to use for a high tech version of a psionic blast.
There's only so many ways you can create some minor variation on a way to damage someone, and have the new mechanics be sufficiently different to qualify as "Unique" without becoming overly gimmicky. We don't need new powersets that have minimal functional difference in order to have a discernible difference in style or concept. Just look at Battle Axe & War Mace... Heck, those barely even qualify as having discernible style difference. If they hadn't both been released before Weapon Customization, they wouldn't even have needed to make them two different sets. There's only barely enough difference between them and Broadsword that you couldn't lump it into the same mix with minimal functional tweaking and just opening up the weapon customization options.
Unfortunately, I'm afraid this level of customization will never happen. It's not something they can easily market as a purchasable upgrade in the store. It would more likely have to be a general change to the game as a whole, and there's no profit in that, or at least no added profit beyond the subscription fees they will continue to receive even if they don't do it
Dear NCsoft, if you go through with this shutdown you've guaranteed you'll not see another dime from me on any project you put out, ever.
http://xx-starhammer-xx.deviantart.com/
An Earth-based set would be very cool, and would probably be more than just "shooting." Some possibilities:
-Stone Spears is a given, along with Hurl Boulder.
-A cone attack, using a similar animation to the upcoming "Living Shadows," as a burst of sand originating from your feet.
-A "Dust Devil" Targeted AoE power, using an animation from Psionic Tornado or Water Spout's animation.
-The "Gravel" cone move that the Minions of Igneous use.
A "throwing weapons" set would be fun, and could have some fantastic animations. Knives, axes, "ninja stars," a boomerang, gas bombs, etc.
Some sort of whip/vine ranged attack set, a la Whiplash. Essentially, something where the attack connects the attacker and the target through an extension. Though it wouldn't involve projectiles, the range would be too large to be a melee set, so making it ranged could be fun and, again, could make for some very neat animations.
Those are just a few ideas off the top of my head, but there are definitely options out there that, with the right amount of creativity, could be fleshed out into full power sets.
@Winter. Because I'm Winter. Period.
I am a blaster first, and an alt-oholic second.