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You just described Scrappers. I and a large number of other people really like how Scrappers play. You also completely ignored any form of design such an AT would have which would require the player to thing, merely assuming these characters would just have huge stats that allow them to "stand and shoot" without doing anything to achieve this status. I haven't read the entire thread, but I don't think what you're describing as impossible is what people are actually asking for.|
Originally Posted by Winterminal
Tankmages require far less "figuring-out". It is a simple playstyle: stand there, shoot stuff, and you probably don't have to worry about much else unless you bite off more than you can chew. While that is immediately gratifying for the player, it does not offer an obstacle that provides sufficient mental stimulation to maintain interest. If such a thing was possible, there would be far fewer players maintaining a high level of activity, because odds are some other game would have presented more of an obstacle that begged to be solved.
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I'm with Johnny on this one - I don't buy that a person who uses a rifle can't wear heavy armour and I don't buy that a person who uses a sword can use a bow. Yes, you can kind of sort of "cheat" with Epic powers, but there are no epic powers for rifles, bows, pistols and energy weapons.
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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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It's not a matter of it being believable. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I'm with Johnny on this one - I don't buy that a person who uses a rifle can't wear heavy armour and I don't buy that a person who uses a sword can use a bow.
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It's a matter of game mechanics.
In order to have a balanced game, certain abilities lock you out of other abilities.
Would you be happy if you had a character whose concept demanded that they be a lightly armored archer, and that character absolutely sucked in comparison to the guy who wanted to be an archer too, but with all the armor your average scrapper gets on top of it?
Allowing the players to use armor sets along with ranged attack sets (to use your example), would completely destroy several ATs.
Who would want to play a Fire/Fire Blaster when they could play a Fire Blast/Fiery Aura character instead? You can make the exact same concept, but have no downside. Only the rare person who actually believes their character should have weaknesses would ever play a character who was NOT armored in some way.
Can you honestly say you would expect to see a Blaster as they currently exist ever again if we were allowed to mix ranged attacks with armor?
The reality of it is, you would end up with ONE character type in the long run: Armored DPS. and with the way some of the elitists around here operate, creating anything else would ensure that you would have a hard time ever finding a team. Who would invite a squishy character when they could invite an armored one who deals just as much damage from range?
Yes, the way the game is does limit character concepts, and that does suck. But the alternative is to have City of Heroes turn into something more like Halo, where everyone is essentially playing the same guy.
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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. |
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No, because that's not what I said. In fact, you post as though you only read the last sentence of my post and skipped over this part:|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Can you honestly say you would expect to see a Blaster as they currently exist ever again if we were allowed to mix ranged attacks with armor?
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
You also completely ignored any form of design such an AT would have which would require the player to thing, merely assuming these characters would just have huge stats that allow them to "stand and shoot" without doing anything to achieve this status.
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This straw man that what's being suggested here is an AT with Blaster damage mods and Tanker survivability mods needs to go away. Yes, it's a bad idea. It's such a bad idea, in fact, that everyone knows it's bad and no-one is actually suggesting it. Please stop arguing against it. You've already won and that's not what I mean.
You ask me if people would still play Blasters if they could play Blasters with armour. I don't know, but let me ask you this - would people play Blasters with defence if they had a Defender damage mod? Because that question isn't as easy hand-wave away. That sort of comparing of uncomarables is what can make such an AT work.
Not to mention that both Kheldians and Soldiers of Arachnos already have ranged attacks and armour and yet people still play Blasters for some reason.
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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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No, it was an honest question. I was not trying to say that is what you said. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
No, because that's not what I said. In fact, you post as though you only read the last sentence of my post and skipped over this part:
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I was asking:
If the option existed to play the exact same concept as either
A) Armored
or
B) Unarmored
How many people would you expect to choose the Unarmored version? Even if the damage modifier was lower.
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| Not to mention that both Kheldians and Soldiers of Arachnos already have ranged attacks and armour and yet people still play Blasters for some reason. |
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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. |
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(The question is directed at Sam, but I'm gonna answer anyway. I'm sure Sam has his own answer, too.)|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
How many people would you expect to choose the Unarmored version? Even if the damage modifier was lower.
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*raises hand* I would play the Unarmored version.
I mean, not all the time. I'd play the armored version, too. But I really, sincerely doubt that Blasters would disappear, or suffer a precipitous drop in popularity. Lots of players like doing MOAR damage, and a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants glass cannon is conceptually attractive to many players as well. You may recall the statistic from a while ago that Blasters are more popular than *any* other AT at character creation (although their popularity falls off at higher levels, due at least in part to systemic issues and blah blah I'm getting off topic). A low-to-moderate-damage range/armor AT can't provide either of those.
Let me turn that question around on you: how many people would you expect to change their preferred AT from Blaster to our hypothetical Defender-damage Blast/Armor AT, even though they play totally differently, compared to people that swap from Scrapper/Stalker/Tanker/Brute, to which it plays very similarly, just further away?
You know, I owe a lot of people on these boards an apology.
I've been being a jerk lately, but it doesn't actually have very much to do with the things I'm responding to at all.
I've just been in a permanently crappy mood pretty much all the time due to things going on in my personal life I'm not comfortable sharing with a bunch of more or less strangers.
Because of those things, I find myself taking out my frustrations on other people because there is nothing much I can really do to fix the things that have me frustrated.
The end result is I end up arguing with people on subjects that, if I'm being honest, I don't actually care all that much about. I've been arguing just to argue.
So, if you're one of the people I've pissed off lately, I apologize. You probably didn't actually do or say anything that justified my response to it.
I typed this out after sitting down and thinking about the fact that I simply don't care if the devs allow us to make tank-mages, or really anything else I've been railing against lately. In fact, I'm starting to not even care about the game that much anymore.
I'm not going to rage quit or anything, but if I suddenly disappear it's because I decided that I just don't care anymore.
Sorry for the abrupt melodrama, now back to your regularly scheduled thread, already in progress.
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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. |
I chuckled at Posi. Defenders must've been the very first archetype imagined? Or in the original alpha vision of the game (when the power selection was going to be more CO than CoH) there would have been that mechanic in place to prevent you from being too stupidly overpowered...
I guess the original dev really, really didn't like Clerics. Of course it's a perfectly valid criticism when a stupid cleric can self-buff themselves into being a better warrior than warriors--the D^D class which you only ever invested a maximum of say 4 levels in to in order to get a larger pool of HPs and then immediately Dual Classed into a class that DIDN'T SUCK if your campaign was higher than level 5.
and Kheldians are an AT that's simply too busy for most people to want to play. Warshades can be very very awesome when played hard but you're constantly hammering away on all your keybinds/macros to keep up that level of play.
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Except we already allow, for example, Scrappers or Tankers to get many ranged attacks, of varying degrees of potency, even very early in their lives, and the game didn't crumble to the ground.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
It's not a matter of it being believable.
It's a matter of game mechanics. In order to have a balanced game, certain abilities lock you out of other abilities. |
Nemesis Staff, Blackwand, Chaingun, EMP Glove and many many more.
And you can have all of them at once, for the most part.
So why then should a Scrapper have to wait until level 41 for Laser Beam Eyes, which is admittedly not that great of an attack? Why should that same Scrapper be allowed Fire Ball, but Bullet Rain is off limits?
The fact that we let Blasters get Hibernate, Temp Invulnerability or Force of Nature at all but wag a finger at them and tell them "but not until your 40s" doesn't make a lick of sense either.
The lion's share of powers (that aren't native to their AT) that people want to realize their concepts are already in the game. We just force them to wait until their character is almost 50 to have what usually amounts to a flavour power, or deny them the power they want while allowing them to have mechanically comparable equivalents from other concepts. We let a Brute have 15 different medium damage ranged attack temp/vet powers they can have by level 10, but tell them Dual Wield, Mental Blast or Lightning Bolt that would actually cost them a power pick are off limits.
Balance is all well and good, but the game already allows for some powers while inconsistently and hypocritically not allowing others of comparable or even less worth. And it dictates when you can have powers, but not in any logical or rational manner, certainly not based on how potent they are.
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Around page 3 this thread became tl;dr.
That said, those 3 pages contained some really good arguments.
I recall reading at some point a longish time ago that a Superman game was being developed where defeating the bad guys who were on his tier wasnt about how much damage Superman could take or dish out, but about defeating the bad guys before there was too much collateral damage.
This doesnt make too much sense in current generation MMOs because you dont have too many ways to measure that in a scripted fight aside from "Race against the timer" function, but I do hope for the future.
Destructible environments in games these days give me hope for fights where you want to kick the bad guys *** without throwing him around too much and destroying homes and businesses in your favorite city, especially if he's as strong as you are and hellbent on causing destruction rather than mostly fighting you.
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So what you want is, essentially, a points-based classless system?|
Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
Except we already allow, for example, Scrappers or Tankers to get many ranged attacks, of varying degrees of potency, even very early in their lives, and the game didn't crumble to the ground.
Nemesis Staff, Blackwand, Chaingun, EMP Glove and many many more. And you can have all of them at once, for the most part. So why then should a Scrapper have to wait until level 41 for Laser Beam Eyes, which is admittedly not that great of an attack? Why should that same Scrapper be allowed Fire Ball, but Bullet Rain is off limits? The fact that we let Blasters get Hibernate, Temp Invulnerability or Force of Nature at all but wag a finger at them and tell them "but not until your 40s" doesn't make a lick of sense either. The lion's share of powers (that aren't native to their AT) that people want to realize their concepts are already in the game. We just force them to wait until their character is almost 50 to have what usually amounts to a flavour power, or deny them the power they want while allowing them to have mechanically comparable equivalents from other concepts. We let a Brute have 15 different medium damage ranged attack temp/vet powers they can have by level 10, but tell them Dual Wield, Mental Blast or Lightning Bolt that would actually cost them a power pick are off limits. Balance is all well and good, but the game already allows for some powers while inconsistently and hypocritically not allowing others of comparable or even less worth. And it dictates when you can have powers, but not in any logical or rational manner, certainly not based on how potent they are. . |
There's nothing wrong with that.
It's not this game, however.
"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
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So can every other AT. That doesn't add anything to your point. Most of those powers have charges so they cannot be used indefinitely.
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Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
Nemesis Staff, Blackwand, Chaingun, EMP Glove and many many more.
And you can have all of them at once, for the most part. |
My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
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The fact that we're told melee ATs can't have certain ranged attacks, especially in the early levels, because it would imbalance the game, yet they're allowed equivalent ranged attacks without giving anything up, and that hasn't harmed the game at all is the point.|
Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
So can every other AT. That doesn't add anything to your point.
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| Most of those powers have charges so they cannot be used indefinitely. |
In fact, them being temp powers and not even requiring you to spend a power pick and being allowed to have them all at once is probably more unbalancing than if you just let a Scrapper just take a power like Laser Beam Eyes or Fire Blast at level 8.
You can't say "you're not allowed to spend a power pick and enhancement slots on Lightning Bolt on a Scrapper that would break the game" and then sell them EMP Glove for a pittance and let them use Nemesis Staff, Blackwand and dozens of other temp ranged attacks until the cows come home.
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Originally Posted by Arilou
So what you want is, essentially, a points-based classless system?
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Take the existing epic pools/patron pools. Rather than treat them as 'epic powers' that we can only take in the 40s they become essentially a tertiary power set for the character. We expand on the number of powers in them. Maybe not a full 9 powers but maybe 6 in each, one more than they have now. We re-order the powers as needed and allow players to take them as early as is reasonable. What's reasonable? Ice Storm for a Brute with Arctic Mastery for example, wouldn't be available before level 20 because ATs that get that power in their Secondary power set don't get it until 20. But ranged ATs get the attack Ice Blast in their secondary at level 2, so on a Brute it wouldn't be unreasonable for them to be able to get it at level 8 or 10.
Take Blaze Mastery for Scrappers for example.
Fire Blast around level 10
Ring of Fire or Char around level 14
Fire Ball and some new power for 22
Melt Armor at level 41
Again, I'm just pulling numbers here that don't (off the top of my head) conflict or come before the level other ATs get those powers in their Primary or Secondary. You get the idea.
After that's done, we make more of these pools that cover other concepts. We have Firearm Mastery for Scrappers that contains Dual Pistols attacks and related powers. Water Mastery for Controllers. Etc.
It's not a freeform system, but it would have more freedom than we have currently and allow people to realize their concept without waiting until the mid 30's for a flavour power that isn't even that great. A Tanker isn't going to be breaking the game with Laser Beam Eyes at level 10.
And the patron pools and patron arcs: Would people really complain if they separated the two and made the patron pools just regular epic pools and had the patron arcs award a temp power or something? I mean, complain more than anyone complains about any other change around here, even if its a huge QoL improvement.
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Three times have I typed out responses to certain things in this thread, gotten 75% (or more) of my ideas thought out, and had the same realization |
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
I typed this out after sitting down and thinking about the fact that I simply don't care if the devs allow us to make tank-mages...
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Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
The fact that we let Blasters get Hibernate, Temp Invulnerability or Force of Nature at all but wag a finger at them and tell them "but not until your 40s" doesn't make a lick of sense either.
The lion's share of powers (that aren't native to their AT) that people want to realize their concepts are already in the game. We just force them to wait until their character is almost 50 to have what usually amounts to a flavour power, or deny them the power they want while allowing them to have mechanically comparable equivalents from other concepts. |
The archetype system, at least in my opinion, is exactly that. No matter how confusing the enhancement system may be, no matter how lost in the city a player can get, no matter how wacky the chat interface may seem, a new player knows that as a Controller (for example) their primary purpose is going to be crowd control, with supplementary buff/debuff abilities.
I can only speak for myself here: when I first joined the game (having never played an MMO), I could take solace in the fact that, as a Blaster, I was supposed to shoot things, and try to avoid hand to hand combat with multiple enemies at a time.
Now, for an actual ranged/armored archetype, that would be fine: the AT would most likely be balanced around that power set combination, and in such a way that it would not take away from any other existing archetypes. (Heck, I'd love to see it.) But to just grant ranged abilities to melee archetypes right off the bat, or armored power sets to Controllers/Dominators, would confuse the hell out of incoming players as they try to learn game mechanics. More than that though, it would most likely lead to a discrepancy in character design, yielding certain combinations that were far more potent and effective than others.
@Winter. Because I'm Winter. Period.
I am a blaster first, and an alt-oholic second.
Personally, I think they should just proliferate blast sets to tankers, and raise the ranged damage modifier some. You don't get a TankMage in the classic sense from this, since TankMage implies you do a high amount of damage at range along with a high amount of defense; tankers wouldn't do that, since they do low damage at range. In fact, if you just straight up proliferated the blast sets and changed nothing else, tanks that took those sets would be severely underpowered, not overpowered; they would be even stronger defensively than current tanks, but would do even less damage, and that is not really a tradeoff most tanks need right now.
This wouldn't replace blasters any more than force field defenders currently replace blasters. Just because someone can get high defenses, mez resistance and leverage all the advantages of ranged attacks well doesn't mean people will want that over someone unprotected that does almost twice as much damage.
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Well, take a look at what I proposed in my edited post before this one. I don't think it would add a lot more complication to what's there already.|
Originally Posted by Winterminal
You raise a valid point, but put yourself in the seat of a new or inexperienced player, even someone with prior experience playing MMORPGs. There is a lot to figure out in this game, and it can become overwhelming very quickly, particularly with the accelerated pace through which the lower levels can be passed. New and/or inexperienced players need something to which they can adhere and count on as a constant.
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But, besides the point, I'll restate what I said in the OP: At this point in the game's life we have a thriving, experienced, knowledgeable and helpful community and enough forward inertia that we're pretty hard to kill. Playing any MMO well involves learning the systems. Anyone wondering if they should take Fire Blast or Unyielding at level 10 need only ask in Broadcast, on the forums or someone on the next team they join.
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I would argue that you already can play Armored Blasters with Defender damage mods, they're called Defenders. Several Defender primaries give you personal survival that is pretty close to Scrapper levels already even before you factor in debuffs. Not to mention that Defenders get Tanker levels of Defense/Resistance form pool powers and epic powers.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
You ask me if people would still play Blasters if they could play Blasters with armour. I don't know, but let me ask you this - would people play Blasters with defence if they had a Defender damage mod? Because that question isn't as easy hand-wave away. That sort of comparing of uncomarables is what can make such an AT work.
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So I guess the answer is no I wouldn't play an Armored Blaster with Defender level damage, I'd rather just play a Defender since I can get pretty much the same survivability and help the team at the same time.
To me this illustrates the core problem with trying to make a Blast/Armor AT in this game. If you give them high damage then they start to invalidate Blasters, Scrappers and Stalkers. If you give them lower damage then they get eclipsed by Support ATs which, let's face it, are somewhat overpowered.
If the devs were to make a Blast/Armor AT I'd expect the damage scale to be about 0.9 (more than Tankers, less than the current Damage ATs). I'd also expect the survival mods to be lower than Scrappers. Probably 0.07 like Blasters have but maybe even 0.065.
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It's weird that you've never seen any version of Captain Marvel dodge the lightning bolt and use it as a weapon that way. He doesn't need an extra ranged attack because he IS a ranged attack. He's faster than light, he steps out of the way of lightning bolts. In some stories, the lightning strike doesn't depower him, it merely replenishes him. Author fiat, of course, but he's used that a few times to kick major butt.|
Originally Posted by Thunder Knight
Captain Marvel will always be Captain Marvel to me. He's had that name for over seventy years, while he's been called "Shazam" in exactly zero issues of any current comic book (and Marvel keeps making new Captain Marvels just to keep a strangehold on the trademark, not because they actually give a crap about who they give the name to). If Cap is still called "Shazam" in 2082, then I'll start calling him that. (But what they've done to my favorite comics character is a separate rant on its own)
Anyway, Cap's still not a tank mage. His transformation lightning is meant for just that - transformation. It's a Nova, a self-heal... and it immediately strips him of all powers, offensive and defensive. It's the ultimate crash. It's not his primary attack, let alone his only attack. |
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A Tank-Mage is, by definition, a character who is primarily a ranged character, but with tank-like defenses. Not just someone who has a ranged attack or two that they use if punching doesn't work. Certainly not someone who has a ranged attack that can be used only once, and then takes away all his other attacks. They have to be just as good at ranged attacks as the ranged attack specialists, and just as good at surviving and drawing aggro as the defensive specialists. That's clearly unbalanced, and that's the problem with Tank-Mages. |
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
I agree we pretty much already have tankmages in the game, the problem is not everyone has an equal opportunity to get there. The biggest divide is ATs with consistent mez protection versus those without- even with capped defenses and debuffed enemies, squishier ATs are at the mercy of random rolls, and can be taken down with a couple lucky hits.
Which is why this thread is basically "give my melee character access to the cool powers I normally have to play a squishy to use."
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If it pleases the court I would like to present both the climatic fight in Kingdom Come and also the Justice League Unlimited episode Clash.
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Originally Posted by Ironik
It's weird that you've never seen any version of Captain Marvel dodge the lightning bolt and use it as a weapon that way.
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So if I'm reading this correctly, basically you want the ability to choose any power when you reach that specific level? Leaving it up to the player if they want to be Offense, Defense, Control or Support?|
Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
This is what I propose:
Take the existing epic pools/patron pools. Rather than treat them as 'epic powers' that we can only take in the 40s they become essentially a tertiary power set for the character. We expand on the number of powers in them. Maybe not a full 9 powers but maybe 6 in each, one more than they have now. We re-order the powers as needed and allow players to take them as early as is reasonable. What's reasonable? Ice Storm for a Brute with Arctic Mastery for example, wouldn't be available before level 20 because ATs that get that power in their Secondary power set don't get it until 20. But ranged ATs get the attack Ice Blast in their secondary at level 2, so on a Brute it wouldn't be unreasonable for them to be able to get it at level 8 or 10. Take Blaze Mastery for Scrappers for example. Fire Blast around level 10 Ring of Fire or Char around level 14 Fire Ball and some new power for 22 Melt Armor at level 41 Again, I'm just pulling numbers here that don't (off the top of my head) conflict or come before the level other ATs get those powers in their Primary or Secondary. You get the idea. After that's done, we make more of these pools that cover other concepts. We have Firearm Mastery for Scrappers that contains Dual Pistols attacks and related powers. Water Mastery for Controllers. Etc. It's not a freeform system, but it would have more freedom than we have currently and allow people to realize their concept without waiting until the mid 30's for a flavour power that isn't even that great. A Tanker isn't going to be breaking the game with Laser Beam Eyes at level 10. And the patron pools and patron arcs: Would people really complain if they separated the two and made the patron pools just regular epic pools and had the patron arcs award a temp power or something? I mean, complain more than anyone complains about any other change around here, even if its a huge QoL improvement. |
Are you assuming some sort of tweaking to power stats? Because otherwise you're looking at City of Heroes Who Are Identical. There are plenty of number crunchers out there who can tell you precisely which power is best at any given level, and when you come right down to it Damage is the benchmark for everything in this game. After that it's Defense and Self-Heal running neck-and-neck.
Even if you did smooth out the powers per level, you could have people gimping themselves accidentally. But if you could have Blazing Bolt (L26 -- Sniper, Extreme DMG(Fire)) AND Lightning Rod (L32 -- PBAoE, Superior DMG(Energy), Foe Knockdown, Self Teleport, Taunt) AND Strength of Will (L38 -- Self +Res(All, Disorient, Sleep, Hold, Immobilize, Knockback), +Recovery)... damn,those three powers alone would make you a walking kill machine. Throw in Siphon Power(L2), Build Up (L4), Freezing Rain (L10) and Burn and a couple self-heals and you're SuperKillerDude.
...and so is everyone else.
Why not just go to Perez and smash a couple thousand grays to get the same feeling? Because that's how fun that would be. Otherwise you have to go up against mad gods and giant space spiders to have any sort of challenge. Fun a few times, maybe, but not much challenge.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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You mean CO.
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Originally Posted by Ironik
Because otherwise you're looking at City of Heroes Who Are Identical.
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My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
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This.|
Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei
People have been soloing AV's in this game since I came in I8.
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And. If someone can't find a way to create a tank mage like character... 'Someone' is doing it wrong.
That said, being the most all powerful player in the whole COx is just not realistic.
Tru
Great game while it lasts.
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I think Johnny's only talking about the ancillary power sets, and giving us access to those earlier in our careers. Although, I still think there is a problem with that since a Blaster who chooses Cold Mastery's Flash Freeze or Force Mastery's Personal Force Field will have a much easier time than a Blaster who chooses, say, Electrical Mastery's Static Discharge, thus yielding a slightly similar situation to what you described.
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Originally Posted by Ironik
So if I'm reading this correctly, basically you want the ability to choose any power when you reach that specific level? Leaving it up to the player if they want to be Offense, Defense, Control or Support?
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@Winter. Because I'm Winter. Period.
I am a blaster first, and an alt-oholic second.
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No, what I'm proposing is to allow players access to the same powers and kinds of powers they are already allowed now with their epics/patrons, but earlier where it is possible and reasonable, spread out over the course of the character's life instead of being all lumped in the mid 30s and up regardless if the power is "too powerful" or not. It's probably not going to break the game for a Tanker to get Laser Beam Eyes at level 10, nor is for a Blaster to get Temp Inulnerability before 35.|
Originally Posted by Ironik
So if I'm reading this correctly, basically you want the ability to choose any power when you reach that specific level? Leaving it up to the player if they want to be Offense, Defense, Control or Support?
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| Are you assuming some sort of tweaking to power stats? Because otherwise you're looking at City of Heroes Who Are Identical. |
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Originally Posted by Winterminal
I think Johnny's only talking about the ancillary power sets, and giving us access to those earlier in our careers.
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| Although, I still think there is a problem with that since a Blaster who chooses Cold Mastery's Flash Freeze or Force Mastery's Personal Force Field will have a much easier time than a Blaster who chooses, say, Electrical Mastery's Static Discharge, thus yielding a slightly similar situation to what you described. |
Which is also part of my point. PFF is arguably a much more potent power on a Blaster than say Temp Invulnerability. Why should TI come later and why should you have to wait until the 40's to get it for that matter when the power just isn't that powerful to warrant that? Static Discharge is another power that doesn't exactly warrant not being able to get until 35 (although I have no personal experience with it, I'm just going by your sentiment and a quick glance at Mid's).
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I don't think tankmage here is referring to ranged damage at all, since range signifies very little in this game. The definition of tankmage I've always been under is a class that combines two or more classes that is superior to to the parent classes. In City of Heroes, we have several different kinds of "classes" in the game:
Support
Control
Tanks
Damage (Subsections Range, Melee, and Pets)
With all of our ATs being a mixture of those 6 different aspects. In general it is a mix of two. A "tankmage" emerge when a class can preform 3 or more skills well enough. I looped all of the damage together since positional damage isn't too important with how the game handles things.
From SO builds there are very few "tankmages" in the game. Some of the FotM builds can classify when they do things well enough, and generally some of the more overpowered sets such as Illusion Control can fit the bill, but nonetheless the game is pretty much fine regarding things if you don't go beyond that.
IO builds and the incarnate system kind of change things around, though. With IOs you can very easily add defenses to any toon, making them delve into the tank class. Building for recharge is tricky, but with high recharge classes can gain an additional class with the ability to use a skill far more often than normal. An example is a Bane Spider I have, who from IOs has superior defenses (tank), his basic mace for damage (melee), and with recharge bonuses has pets that are almost always on (pets). Another is a controller I have (support and control) with high defenses from IOs (tanks) who gains damage by being able to summon multiple lightning storms and have tornado up the whole time (pets).
The incarnate system just hammers all of our characters into being tankmages. Lore adds incredible damage, destiny adds incredible support, judgement adds damage, with interface/hybrid adding whatever you want.
Whether mass class blending is good for the game is up for debate. As much as I like the ability to do many things with any one character, it does hurt diversity, playtime, and the fun factor to have a game full of tankmages. Thankfully the devs have made it so things aren't too bad: Even IOed out no one takes a hit like my tank, no one deals damage like my stalker, no one supports as well as my defender, and no one controls as well as my controller. Because of this, even with IOs and the incarnate system the parent ATs still have their role in the game. This only becomes a problem when we start to have classes that fall into disuse because another class does more or does it better. There are places where we start to come dangerously close to this level (with Tankers starting to loose their role due to IO sets mostly), but so far we haven't truly reached a point where one AT mysteriously disappears from everyone's character list.
With that, I think I just got a new idea to improve tankers...
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