The CO Community & You

Six of one and a half-dozen of the other, mostly. But even for the niggling fanatic there are some actual melee attacks that do fire damage.

List them, then, because I'm failing to find such on the CO wiki.

Brimstone, Eruption, Earth Splitter and Fury of the Dragon. I was thinking of Burning Chi Fist and Dragon Uppercut as well, but I misremembered the additional damage type.

And Pyre is essentially a better version of Combustion from Tanker's Fire Melee.

Edit: Earth Splitter is a sneaky ranged attack in a melee set.

I wasn't really considering PBAoEs as melee, but if you're offering those, fine. I still think they could do better for people who actually want to punch or kick or headbutt people with fire or ice or whatever.

They really could, and they may very well in the future.

They could absolutely do better. If nothing else, the various energy forms could add their particular type of energy damage to a character's attacks. There is always room for improvement. But when it comes to video games where I make characters, I always find myself bending to the limitations of the game - making do with what I'm given.

I get that,why is it exempt? It's the exact same mathematical "Thing+Element" concept at work .
"Punch+Fire"
Is conceptually different from
"Sword+fire" how?
or, to put it in your own terms:
If "Punch+fire" is no different from "Karate Chop/grab/slap/kick+Fire" how is "Sharp Object+fire" different from "Punch+Fire"?
You forgot to explain what "Makes sense visually" means, as well.
The quoted section said that a martial artist using kinetic energy(presumably internally generated) and a martial artist using energy-generating magic gloves would look the same.
Essentially your point in this segment appears to be that two characters who differ only in terms of the means in which they acquired(origin)their powers(which are the same) would look the same. So, that's an "origin" argument.

You suggest that, instead of exploring the unique properties of concepts to develop something new and unique, a simple all-around "Base" should be created and allowed for minor cosmetic changes.

As opposed to exploring the potential nuances of the concepts, you propose that we just blanket them all with "punches" and then let cosmetic effects be the only distinguishing elements.

You are arguing for less customization by stating that there should be less to customize as a whole. In response to a complaint that a certain customization option is not available within a certain game.

This was mostly a practical thing than a conceptual thing, animations take time, after all.And, again, City of Heroes didn't invent the concept. In other words, this isn't a conceptual limitation, this is a technical limitation. And this technical limitation is only in a very specific area.

Everything else about the powersets is different(in so much as they yield different results when used)

Well, first and foremost is behavior. Fire does one thing, Electricity another, Ice yet another. "Damage Type" isn't the most important factor, but "attack behavior" is. It's the biggest point of distinction, and, usually, informs the visuals. What powers do, what is known as "Secondary effects" or "damage type" in a "mostly numbers" game like City of Heroes or Champions(-tohit,DoT,Slow, As well as all of the "mostly secondary effect" powers like Power Push, Touch of Fear, Lightning Clap) e.t.c. would be things like "Movement/Hitbox","range" "After Effects","Conditions of use" "priority" e.t.c. in a more dynamic environment such as an action game or just "Fiction"

In other words, the actual way in which these things(Fire, Ice, Electricity, e.t.c.) act differently from each other, enough to make calling them different things and using different effects relevant. If I, say, cover my fist in fire, and punch someone, and they freeze in a block of ice, because the Power I applied the "fire" animation to is designed to freeze the opponent in a block of ice, I'm not doing a good job of faking "Fire Melee". This is true for a Flaming Punch, Kick, Chop, Pheonix Eye Fist, or flick.

Taking the unique aspects of the things you are working with into account is what sets things apart. Fire burns, Electricty shocks, Ice freezes, dark... maybe "corrupts" would be the right word.

Consider how odd it would be to go into Steel canyon with your water blaster, and discover you can't put out fires.This is the closest this game comes to "Power behavior" in a practical, non-numbers sense. It can't practically express the way gravity effects the movement of water, the way water pressure effects things, erosion, water-logging, e.t.c. This game is mostly numbers(in terms of what players directly interact with. ALL video games are, essentially, numbers, but action games hide more of their numbers than City of Heroes does) and a player's ability to calculate the "arc" of their water attack, and how that differs from the "arc" of a fire attack can't be expressed in this game. So we have but one recourse:

Water Beats Fire.

In this game, it's because of the "cold" damage type. But in a game with one "blast" set and numerous visual effects, "damage type" would be less relevant, and probably wouldn't exist. In which case, a "water" customization for blast powers wouldn't be able to put out fires.

How these factors can be best applied within the limitations of the work is up to the creator and the tools at their disposal.

As for animations, well let's look at ATLA, for example.....

Oh hey, you know Avatar. This will make this easy. Yes, marrying physical motions to certain "concepts" based on the established behaviors of those concepts is a good idea an-

Ugh, Sam, please learn to try and know what you are talking about, in the future.
Couple of things:

1. Firebending is Shaolin Longfist Kung-fu
2. Earthbending is Hung-gar Kung-fu
3. Toph Uses Southern Mantis style specifically so she can "feel" things out and then "react", but she still applies earthbending in the same fashion, but with modified hand motions. In other words, she does the exact same thing with her bending but alters it ever so slightly.
4. The bending styles where not designed to fully reflect on the people who used them, but on the behavior and tactical functions of the elements. Everyone uses a certain "base" with a few moves here or there to distinguish their personal tactics.Zuko,Iroh,Ozai, and Azula all use Shaolin Longfist, with a few character-specific moves and distinct approaches to combat. Iroh is Patient, Zuko is bull-headedly aggressive, and Azula is manipulative. but these things are mostly strategy as opposed to direct combat.They are all using Shaolin Longfist forms and all of their fire moves, and is used,essentially the same.

Firebending has little to no defensive moves because they can't really use fire to "block" or "redirect" they pretty much just power through.Offense offense offense.

Airbending, which is Bagua-Zhang(sp?) is almost entirely defensive because there's precious little to be done to directly "kill" someone with wind, so it's mostly movement and redirection.


Earthbending is direct and straightforward because complex manipulations isn't Rock's strong-suit. Earthbenders mostly raise/form and then release stone to go about it's business of smashing.Many earthbenders even make use of pre-existing structures instead of shaping their own.

Their defenses work in similar fashion. They raise a wall to "block" and then that's it. They might then pick up that same wall later and then "punch" but this is different from-

Waterbending is all about the complex manipulations. Water benders hardly ever "fully release" their element, particularly so they can whirl it back into a defensive function whilst still attacking.

Kay.
A "Fire Punch" is not a Purely "mechanical force attack" it's a hybrid concept. It's even in the name

"Fire+Punch"

Ignoring the unique properties of fire and just focusing on the "punch", you'd have a point, but taking both into account, you're wrong.

Here's an example:

How would we make "Electric Melee" unique as a concept?

My idea would be to make it "Electric Grappling" Taking the basic aspects of both concepts and trying to blend them together.

The "Grappling" aspect wouldn't be necessarily tied to any particular known style of wrestling, but extremely close-quarters combat would be essential.

It would focus on a great deal of getting in close, making direct physical contact, and then maintaining that direct physical contact in order to conduct however many volts of electricity you need to into the enemy.

It wouldn't need locks, holds, throws, or takedowns, necessarily. Just a means to keep enemies in close enough for you to "juice" them. It might have a few "rush" powers similar to Champions "Movement" attacks.
It might have a few quick "opening jab" powers that would stun to facilitate longer grabs.

I'd likely put in at least one "one-two" punch power for the sake of general use, but the majority of Electric Melee powers in this set would be about holding on to your enemy for relatively short-ish periods. Lots of "hugging" in this set.

I might also come up with some manner of channeling it through proper conductors. Allowing certain, highly situational powers that would only work within a given environment.

Why? well because If we're making "electric melee" the assumption is you can't throw lighting around. So for whatever reason, you can't just have a power, like, say, Jacob's Ladder in this set. So everything is close. Electricity has to be conducted through appropriate channels in order to have it's effects, so it would need to either be very close or use outside objects(Streams/Rivers, wires, metal stairways, e.t.c.).

Fire, on the other hand, spreads through most things. Even if fire itself doesn't spread, the heat, which causes the burning damage anyway, does.
And, eventually, if you get hot enough, everything burns.

A fire melee set would utilize greater range because even if you can't "throw fire" because it's fire melee, duh, you can still spread it. So it would start at very close range and extend outwards as the fight continued.

Further, fire lingers in a way that electricity doesn't. If you tapped someone with your flaming hand, they would catch on fire.If you tapped someone with an electrified hand, they would feel it's effects immediately and then recover based upon how "tough" or "grounded" they where.

The electricity would travel through them and then leave the body. The fire would hang out for a bit.

There would be lots of maintaining distance by igniting the things around you, or just being extremely hot, and darting in for quick strikes and then retreating (like a flickering flame)

All of this could be Physical in a way that doesn't completely translate into direct strikes. The Electrical Melee Character has to engage in melee, but doesn't have to "hit" anyone. And it has to engage in melee with a timing that doesn't relate to direct physical fighting.

The Fire melee character barely has to touch his opponent, but because of his limitation(melee) he has to keep close, further, he doesn't have to engage in sustained combat, because one hit will yield continuous damage whether he engages or not. He just has to come in close enough to make sure the enemy stays aflame occasionally. He has to stoke the fire.

Not really. What we are talking about here is a casting animation.

Dragon Ball Z had plenty of "energy mouth blasts" nothing about these are unique to the concepts.


I could take them or leave them, but yes, elemental weapons are just as much a broad concept as elemental Melee and a pretty basic thing to not have.

You don't need a set that has "kicks" in the name to have melee. You need a set that has kicks to have kicks, though.



If what you want is "special melee that does something special" then "generic melee that does generic things with the option to put stickers on it" doesn't do what you want.
Please don't put words in my mouth.

I mostly wanted "emanation" points for generic concepts, mostly ranged and control, that where cripplingly specific. Sonic blast being only mouth-fired, e.t.c. With beam rifle as a powerset, I don't really feel a "need" for "gun emanation points" for energy blast. Beam rifle both satisfies the need foe weapon-based energy blasting powers while exploring the unique potential of the idea of a "energy gun"

The "internal arsenal" concept has a lot of unique aspects to it that can't be expressed with "Invisible rifles" Just look at the "Powered armor" set in Champions and Compare it to their "Munitions" set. Both are in the same "framework" but there's a lot of difference between the two.
The ability to color one's powers isn't exactly "Broad" customization. Five different powers that do five different things, each with color customization, is different from one power that does one thing with color customization. It's so fundamentally different, that I don't really think they bear discussing in the same breath. It's like saying being able to open or remove the hood of the trunk on a sedan is somehow better than being able to purchase either a Sedan or a Pick-up truck.

That's a flaw in design, not concept.

Having less options isn't greater customization.


If you make them different then they will be different. Even if the animation is the same, if I can freeze with my ice melee and set someone on fire with my fire melee, you really don't need to have it explained to you why those things are different

You are literally asking:

"If you take away everything that makes them unique, then how are they unique?"
Ehh, no you don't. You agree with what you think I said. What I said was "In the case that alternate, elemental melee energy builders get introduced into Champions, they will all probably look alike because all the ranged energy builders look alike." This isn't an endorsement or a statement of quality, this is just a prediction based on previous examples.

That's fine, that's not what we're talking about, though.


Consider this:

Hypothetically there is a game that allows you to customize appearance and use powersets similar to this game. One of the Powersets is "Hand-To-Hand Combat" and another is "Electric Grappling". Assume "Hand-to-Hand Combat" is punches and kicks, and maybe even some grabs, with the option to apply combat auras, and Electric Grappling is the Hypothetical Powerset described above, also with the option to apply combat auras the way we currently can. One day "Electric Grappling" Disappears, did the players of that game lose or gain a customization option?

You've sort of missed my point entirely. Having a Normal Punch. and Also a Fire Blast Attack, is not equivalent to having "fire melee". Your idea of "energy blasting and also being able to survive, and maybe also punch sometimes" is not related to Energy Melee at all, is what I'm saying.


So people deciding how (mostly)fictional concepts should be used is out of the question? Because I'm pretty sure "figuring out how your stuff works and making it consistent" is kind of a key element of introducing unique stuff in fiction.

If "Dark Energy" is said to exist within a narrative, it would be somewhat pointless to claim it is different in some way from anything else(I.e naming it) if you're not going to actually show that. Or show inconsistent behavior. Again, if there's a Dark Blast in a game, and it does certain things, a punch with dark effects around it that doesn't also do those things is inconsistent behavior. It's not a "dark punch" if it doesn't behave like "Dark" is established to behave.

The minute we disregard the potential uniqueness of the concept, we pretty much make doing it pointless.There's no point in introducing "fire" in any kind of meaningful way if we're not going to have it do something unique from "frog". Frog and Fire are the same thing if they don't actually act differently from each other.

Realism isn't the point, narrative consistency is. If something introduces X concept, states that X concept behaves a certain way, and then applies that concept in conjunction with ANOTHER concept, things should remain consistent.

P.S. if that's the case, then guns don't kill. :P
Why not?
It is if the setting says it is.

I never said "Only this way" I said "Melee isn't ranged, Sticking a Glowy animation on a different concept isn't necessarily the same."

I also said "Using the unique properties of X concept to make it distinct can make things better and was my preference".
I don't know why you're conflating this into "fire can ONLY be performed with open-handed palm-thrusts" or whatever it is you're on about.

It's a good idea to pick one and stick with it within your fiction, though, less it get's messy and poorly written.

So, why, exactly, Should someone who wants to have unique animations and effects tied to a specific type of power be held back by someone who doesn't really care so long as the effects are there?

If I want, say "Electric Grappling" and "Electric Grappling" is a powerset and "Hand-To-Hand Combat" is a powerset, why exactly does "Electric Grapping" need to not exist just so the person who wants "electric punching" can feel satisfied?
I'm pretty sure you disagreed with me on this exact idea in a very long discussion with your point being "The animations are what make Martial Arts(The City of Heroes powerset) unique" when I said "The Lack of the distinct visual effects, damage type, secondary effects, and power mechanics of "Elemental melee" powers are what makes Martial Arts unique" In other words, it wasn't the whoosh-pow kicks that made Martial Arts truly unique, it was that it was a "Not Laser-punch" to everything else's "Laser-Punch".

This discussion was especially annoying, because I do believe it was
post-i16 and Martial Artists could go without Whoosh-pow kicks at the time.

Outside of your personal grudge with Darkness Melee, and your desire to be "right" in this discussion, what changed your mind?
eh, Don't care either way about this, Re: this discussion. That is another discussion to have for another time.
Why, exactly? Your point seems to hinge on your dislike of the concept, and nothing else.

You think I'm arguing that I can't customize other powers enough. No idea why. Not that I disagree about the lack of customization,just that it's not this discussion. I'm arguing that a power concept doesn't exist, and that this absence is a negative.

These are not the mutually exclusive concepts you think they are. Even more so because these concepts not being mutually exclusive is a proven fact ON THE GAME THIS MESSAGE BOARD IS MADE FOR.

Currently, in City of Heroes there are sets that attempt to explore the unique potential of the concept of "Elemental Melee" and a Martial Arts set with the option to use Combat auras, for ANY character, regardless of powerset. And even procs and Incarnate powers for damage type and secondary effects.

The game hasn't been completely destroyed by this set-up yet..... aw dammit.

Allowing for one doesn't necessarily negate the existence of the other. Moreover, creating more diversity within certain power-types allows for MORE creativity. If there's, "electric Grappling" "Fire Tapping" "Energy Hand-fighting" and "Darkness spooky grasping" and also "Hand-to-Hand combat" then everyone gets something they want. If there's only "Hand-to-hand Combat" than only the "Hand-To-Hand Combat fans get what they want, with a minor bone thrown to everyone else with minor cosmetic options(They will always be minor options in your idea, unless you just create full-on power creation like Freedom Force, which is completely different from what we are discussing)

And if you had your way, you wouldn't have that one Fire/fire and neither would anyone else.


I don't think I can properly explain an idea I'm not arguing in favor of.


I'm not tripping over anything, sweetheart.

I expect this to continue on until either I get bored or you start sticking your fingers in your ears. Well, sticking your fingers in deeper and going "LALALAALALALA" Since your digits are clearly in your ears at the moment.

These are two completely different things you are talking about. one is general cosmetic customization, and another is power design.
Again, there's no answer to your question of: "If you take away what's unique about them, how are they unique" that doesn't agree with your argument because it's a fallacy of a question.
I feel like it's an Overwhelming exception, but I also feel like that's the wrong term, somebody help me out.
Ice freezes and is ice, fire burns, and is fire. These are two different things. Melee, range, control, they are still two different things.

Fire controls, Blasts, and Melees via burning and being fire.
Ice controls, blasts, and melees via freezing and being ice.

The rest of it, such as animations, hinges on how much someone wants to integrate what these things do into how they are applied. It's optional, but what you create will be better for having put more thought into it.
No we won't, because you generally refuse to listen to, or even address the actual points being made by people who disagree with you.
This is pretty much my thinking as well. If I do decide to go to Champions(I'm strongly considering not doing the MMO thing for a while, honestly) I'm not going to try and "re-create" my City of Heroes characters. I'm confident enough that I can create new ideas that make use of the ample tools Champions Online offers.

Remember I'm talking about compared to other games. In WoW and its relatives, armor just doesn't provide a level of mitigation close to CoH, let alone immunity to mezz effects. In CoH, armor powers provide a foundation to use gear (IOs) that makes it possible to build things that are outrageously more armored than what you can do in those games. In CoH, even my terribly built SO Tankers could handle 5 to 8 enemies at a time without support. Once you add optimal gearing on top of that, the CoH armored character is leagues ahead in the survivability department. The standard "tanker" popularized by WoW-like games is intended to be able to slow down damage so that a dedicated healer can keep them alive, and die if that doesn't happen.

Actually, you know what? Forget it. I had a huge long post that took me a good two hours to type, but reading your last line just made me realise it's pointless to post it. You're not interested in explaining your side of the argument nor helping me understand. You're only interested in humiliating me and proving me "wrong" over something that's only and solely based in opinion.

You could have saved yourself a ton of typing if, instead of throwing insults in my face, you had simply said that what you feel is different between the various elemental attacks is the mechanics. If you'd stopped to actually comprehend my post instead of rushing to piece-quote it, you might have noticed that I ignored power mechanics and numbers entirely. I simply never considered that that might be relevant to you, because from where I'm sitting, this simply isn't relevant to character concept. But, of course, I can't simply have misunderstood, I must be wilfully obtuse and probably stupid.

I will say this much - I don't want electric grappling. I want grappling, but without the electricity. I want electricity, but without the grappling. I want options separated from each other so that I can pair them up in any combination I want. To me, having a choice from Electric/Dark/Fire/Physical Grappling/Tapping/Grasping/Hand-to-Hand in any combination (which is 16 options, by the way) is far more important than having the only four static pairs that you mentioned. Even if that comes at the expense of the options being mechanically similar, I'd still pick greater cosmetic variety over greater numerical specificity.

If you want a game where the natures of what powers constitute are represented well through power mechanics, don't go to Champions Online. Its power sets encompass far too many ideas for them to be specific to any one of them. If you can't live with repurposing attacks, then pick another game. But all things considered, I don't know how picky you can afford to be.

It's a very simple concept that you're making much more complex than it needs to be tripping over your own feet to insult me. Please, if you can, respond in uninterrupted text, rather than quipping at everything I said off-hand.

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.

I think you're taking this a bit personally, Sam. This is how I talk. I've always talked like this in these little tiffs with you. Further, the rest of this post is coming off a bit melodramatic and hypocritical. I'm only interested in entertaining myself for a bit and(actually) I was banking on you saying something to the effect of "Oh yeah, well what about ICE MELEE? huh? huh?" or something like "Fire melee can be grappley too" or, you know, something other than hysterics.

Make a long post, get a long response
/e shrug



Oh you mean like you did? Because what I thought I was doing was taking the time to separate my points and match them to your own. Like now. Guess I'm just a big ol meaney who respects your opinion enough to take a (very, very, very) long time to work out what you are saying and craft a response to it. I'll be sure o just "TL:DR" or "Cool Story, bro" you from now on.

I noticed that, hence the "if you take away everything that's unique about them..." bit. Visuals are strongly tied to mechanics which help express concepts in video games. This is pretty basic stuff. If things don't go flying back, you can't really say they've been "Knocked back" If a character is frozen solid in a block of ice, but it's action doesn't reflect the visual, then that's kind of a problem with both the visuals and the mechanics, and thus the concept suffers. Again, adding pointless visuals to something doesn't make it fit the concept of doing those things because it doesn't change what is done

It's very important because video games are about doing. Any concept you have is about what your character does. If your character can't do a thing, then they can't do the thing.

I assumed you didn't misunderstand because I, and others, said it a whole bunch of times, particularly around the "damage type" arguments, which is functionally the same thing, or at least a small part of the same argument.

I just assumed you didn't' care for some odd reason, because you didn't seem to express any concern about that idea in any meaningful way.
Kay.
You missed the part where I said these are not Mutually exclusive concepts in the midst of your fit, didn't you? Because I totally said that, you where there, I quoted you.
You where all:
" DUDE! I think being able to visually customize a simplified base concept is more valuable than creating multiple different powers to express subtle variations of the concept of "melee combat" because it allows greater customization of the base concept!"
and I was all:
"BRO! you can totally have it both ways! You can have a "Generic hitting stuff" set and you can visual customization to it, AND you can have multiple unique powersets that explore the differences! We have that RIGHT NOW IN THIS GAME it's like Reeses, man. so awesome"
And then you where all:
"Dude I love Reeses so much"
and I was all:
"Oh jeez, me too, let's get , like a garbage bag full of em, I got 50 buck, brusco, let's roll"
And then we ate Reeses and got sick and cried because some mean Korean Company is killing our favorite game. It was really emotional, don't you remember that?

A couple of them hold interest for me, Powered Armor, Supernatural, and the ability to mix-and match presents some interesting opportunities. It's not completely flawed or completely perfect. We just seem to disagree on what those flaws are.

What is this, some kind of admonishment or threat or something? So weird.
I like to think of them less as insults and more as snappy quips Sorry, but I respect your opinion too much not to address it. But in the interest of maintaining our friendship:
REBUTTAL!

FF defenders are among the most powerful mitigators of damage in, AFAIK, any of the major MMOs but have always been as rare as hens teeth.

That, more than anything else, speaks to how strong "armours" (and related debuffs) are in CoH.

Yes, you said "if you take away everything that's unique" about three times, but that doesn't mean anything. It's generic and aimed at exaggerating, not aimed at explaining, because it hinges on me getting what you feel "everything unique" constitutes. I don't, or at least didn't. And as you'll find, now that I DO, I don't necessarily agree with you on what a power needs in order to be unique.

Sam Tow was always supposed to have pistol attacks and sword attacks at the same time. City of Heroes never let me do that. Now that I tried Champions, that's not that much closer. Sam can now have pistol attacks, but they act like machine pistols, whereas what I had envisioned for Sam was more a pair of slow-firing, incredibly large-calibre pistols. The ".90 calibre concussion pistol with armour-piercing rounds" from Advent Rising, basically. Ripper? I forget what it's called. That, along with the Seeker pistol which has the ability to fire a shot which costs 5 ammo points but deals ridiculous damage and can bounce between up to four targets, doing damage to rach.

I write my characters from scratch in words and ideas long before I get to a game which is supposed to house them, so the game never represents what they do exactly. No game ever could, it's the nature of having very specific ideas. The best a game can ever hope to do is let my characters do the majority of what they're supposed to be able to do in a way at least roughly comparable to how they're supposed to be able to do it. Pretending my characters can do things they really can't do is par for the course for me. So long as they look like I could claim they can do these things, that's enough.

Actually, I have a better example. Ezikiel Bane, my flagship villain, is an "earth" user - Stone/Stone Brute in City of Villains. His powers in continuity, however, are nowhere near that limited. The man is supposed to be able to transmute elements into the various types of crystalline structures he can command basically telekinetically. This would enable him to do more or less everything all the ATs with access to Earth powers can, and more. He has entire buildings shaped out of granite that he has made himself and which he controls like Magneto in the first X-Men movie, he tends to prefer fighting at rage using levitated boulders, rock waves, dust storms, crystal spears, ground eruptions and more, but protects himself with a variety of stone- and crystal-based armours, as well as having immense strength in melee.

I designed Zik as a Mary Sue completely intentionally, because he's the type of overpowered antagonist who doesn't like to get his own hands dirty, but will always play the final boss. No game ever will let me do all the weird **** I've come up for Ezikiel to do (nor get me to spell his name right, I refuse!), so I'm perfectly fine with doing a small subsection of what I think I should if I at least get to look good doing it. And right now, I don't exactly have a world of choice.

Damage types are the least convincing argument to me, because they're the epitome of meta-game behind-the-scenes math. I differentiate between "numbers" and "mechanics," in the sense that numbers literally do not matter a lick beyond min/maxing, not to me. They don't look different unless you care about the combat spam. And damage types are just that - numbers.

You make a good point that the actual mechanics of how the powers behave do come into play. Believe me if you want, but this never crossed my mind. I was always looking at this from an RPG perspective of "power does damage, power kills foe." My blindspot for this comes from my extreme disinterest in control and support powers and preference for direct damage - end things rather than dance about the issue. When you look at things from that perspective, you miss the obvious aspect of power behaviour, as I did. Arcana did bring up secondary effects, I just didn't realise what that meant until now.

I just assumed you didn't' care for some odd reason because you didn't seem to express any concern about that idea in any meaningful way.

I didn't read it like that, however. I read you saying that you wanted one "generic melee" set that can also be made elemental and several element-specific melee sets that CAN'T be made non-elemental or to use another element. Thus, those who wanted just melee had that one melee set and those who wanted special melee could use the exotic ones. That ties into the question I kept asking, because you seemed to suggest that certain elements should only be used with certain fighting styles like they are in Avatar.

That's what I didn't get, by the way - are you suggesting that different elements should use different styles of hand-to-hand fighting? Are you saying that electricity only makes sense to be used for grappling and fire for quick incendiary attacks? Frankly, I'm still not sure about that. I know you say "these" are not "mutually exclusive" but I'm not convinced we mean the same thing when we say "they" and "mutually exclusive." It comes down to this:

Suppose I want to use one of those powersets that "explore the differences" in a non-elemental, non-energy, physical concept, where a character fights with the style of that set, but uses no element? Do you see a place for this?

The only thing that holds interest for me, realistically speaking, is the ability to combine ranged attacks, melee attacks and survivability in the same character. City of Heroes more or less forced my hand into only ever playing Scrappers, Brutes, Stalkers and Masterminds because these were the only ATs which weren't "squishy," and that in turn made a lot of my conceptually ranged characters into melee ones. You wanna' know about the game not letting me do something? Inna, my Energy/Energy Brute, was written in her own backstory as having the "Nova" power. But because I couldn't and can't stand Blasters, I made her into a Brute and had to give that up. I'm used to my characters not being able to do what they're supposed to.

Why do you think I flipped my **** when I heard about Titan Weapons and realised Xanta (see sig for pic) would finally, after six ******* years, would be getting the weapon she always should have had?

More a cautionary warning. We're used to doing all this weird and wonderful stuff in City of Heroes, but that won't last forever. Even if we manage to save it, by some cosmic collision of chance, it still won't last forever. Sooner or later we'll have to go play other games, and other games aren't as accommodating. We are both going to have to make some concessions and accept characters that aren't quite "right" eventually.

---

Also - no hard feelings, and apologies for skipping parts of your post. As long as we can focus on being productive and discussing a topic, I'm happy. Exchanging ideas and concepts is always fulfilling so long as we're not trolling each other. Despite what it may seem like, I really am not interested in putting anyone down or being right. I just want to converse, and it seems like the conversation will flow smoother if we step over the mutual accusations. The post I deleted was full of me being a dick anyway. You're not missing much.

*edit*
Other than...

I did, actually, but that went with the rest of the post I dumped.

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 should keep in mind that none of this ish matters.


Well I figured "everything" included... well.. everything to the point that spelling it out wasn't necessary. Plus, before I started using that phrase I actually went into explaining why these things where important.
So "everything unique" was shorthand for "that thing I said a few paragraphs up about the things that make a thing unique"

I found the DP energy builders to have a steady and slow rate of fire and the "main attacks" to be very fast. Might consider switching out whatever EB you're using for a Pistols one.

I'm pretty much in the "Close enough is good enough" camp as well. While I've moved more towards using the tools I'm given, most of my ideas hinge upon what would make for good action, when it comes to powers. and for me that means "cool stuff I've never seen before" which usually means "Cool stuff that isn't in this game and probably won't be in any other one because of how much thought I've put into it" As long as I can get something that looks and acts "close enough" I'm happy. Figuring out how to bend builds to concept was a thing I was just getting the hang of recently and made what had previously been "A boring math problem" a fun creative exercise.

This feels like a worse example simply because he sounds like he should be a Dominator
I have no idea what this means. Something about a very strong character, I think.

well, kinda/sorta, depends on the damage type you're talking about, in this game as well as what "damage type" means in other games. Cold damage in this game causes slow, which is definitely an effect you can see. I do believe when fire lands it's DoT it leaves a "burning" effect on enemies. So, there's bits and pieces, it's mostly invisible numbers, though, yeah. I hate that this game is so much invisible numbers rolling dice at each other.

"Damage type" can mean a lot more in other games, Similar to water Dousing fire in ours.

In an action game this would be things like "arcs high" "longer range" "pierces through enemies" and would be much more meaningful to how you viewed things. But it doesn't have to be strictly an action game. You should check out Freedom Force. How powers behave is very important(and also completely customizable) in that game.


roughly, yes.
Not "only ever ever and never anything else in any work" but it's much cooler for someone to take the time and think about the nature of these ideas and how to apply them in a way that not only works with them, but also, somewhat, justifies them being different in the first place.

It's more appropriate than "generic attack number 59" being used for EVERYTHING kind of the way we have it now.
It's also good for making your setting have a unified idea and a consistent treatment of ideas. If certain ideas are "always" shown a certain way in your work, these ideas have more "weight" because they are "solid facts" of your universe. They're walls and pillars upon which you rest your narrative.

"These" being the concept of Visual customization of a generic base and visual and practical uniqueness of multiple sets. You can have both, as we already do in City of Heroes. You can customize your Martial Arts and Street Justice with combat auras to have "Elemental Punches" AND there are actual "Elemental Melee" sets as unique powers with unique attributes to them. It's not an "either/or" situation.


Not if they actually explore the style in a way that hinges on the element.
It's the equivalent of drawing your knife and shooting someone or asking to be able to stab without a blade.

Let's assume, Say, the "electric grappler" has an attack where he pushes himself close to his opponent and channels electricity just with the body contact. No headbutts, no bearhugs, nothing violent at all that could be conceived as "fighting" Just a friendly hug or a pat on the back, and then

BZZZZZZZZT. Dead.

It could be an assassin's strike type option.

Now, how are you going to do that without electricity(or at least some kind of fictional "energy). Is every power in this hypothetical set going to be like that? No, of course not, doesn't need to be, but I figure enough can be done in that fashion to where asking to have the other kid's toys is asking for something you can't actually use.

As for "something similar"? No reason that you can't get "close enough". No reason there can't be a "Martial Arts" and a "Street Justice" and a "Wrestling Melee" e.t.c. Ask me about what I think Martial arts would be in my hypothetical Super-hero MMO sometime.
I have various ideas that don't fit within the confines of Archetypes, it happens.

That's odd, because I find Blasters(and Doms to a lesser extent) to be the most conceptually versatile AT in this game. The limitations they faced where mostly ones of Game balance(powers not being as good or helpful as they needed to be) or Content(Certain powersets don't exist yet but would totally go here someday) This is why I love i24 so much. It solved both of those problems in a big way. *sigh*

Yeah, everybody feels like that when their "one true set" comes out.

I'm already doing that in various capacities here. I do it less now, as I learned to work with the tools given, but still. Learn and adapt and move on. Champions doesn't have Elemental melee. I probably won't make characters with those powers until it does(if I pick up Champions)
I'm always trolling just a little bit. I'm a "Social Superadyne User"
See me at the raves, crumping to Skyway dubstep.
I have so many ideas, bro. SO MANY

My headache is due to either a cold or some kind of bug, actually. Or possibly something chronic. Point is, it doesn't have to do with the Internet.

Dominators don't have armour sets nor dependable status protection nor high high hit points nor Granite Armour. That, and I made Zik back in I6 LOOONG before any of the Dom changes. Besides, his single most defining feature is he's practically unkillable.

Aha. That's a large source of our misunderstanding, if that's how you interpret "damage type." In City of Heroes, all damage is is a health modifier, which is typed for reasons of which modifiers are used to alter it. No damage type itself comes with secondary effects. Ice damage doesn't slow and fire damage doesn't burn. Those are additional special effects that are tied to the powers themselves, not the actual damage type. Multiple powers exist which deal Fire damage but don't apply any DoT, such as Consume. For the most parts, our developers have tried to keep secondary effects between powers with similar themes consistent, but they deviate as often as they are the same, and even similar effects aren't always the same. Fire Blast powers, for instance, all deal the same damage pet tick of DOT, but I believe Blaze or Blazing Bolt have more DOT ticks.

That's why I draw a distinction between power mechanics and damage types. Damage type by itself means nothing, it's just the type of damage for the purposes of damage resistance. All the effects you're describing are actual additional power effects, which comes down to power design more so than "numbers."

Basically, I had a Jack Emmert moment. Remember when he said "No more major changes to powers!" a few weeks before ED hit? His defence was... Well, that's not a change to powers, it's a change to enhancements. Nobody believed him but me, probably, and that's the exact same flub I fell to. You said "damage types" and I thought "attribmod" when what you were talking about was the additional power effects that define the esoteric behaviour of powers beyond base attributes common to every power. That's basically were we talked past each other - damage type the technical term is only ever relevant in the context of damage resistance, of which City of Heroes critters have a lot, but Champions critters very rarely have any.

This brings me back to a point you've already chastised me for twice, but I just don't see that, or at least don't really agree. You say it's like drawing a knife and shooting with it (and we'll ignore gunblades for the sake of expedience), but that's not exactly the case. "Knives" are a real thing that has a real use in combat, and that real use informs how the set is designed. You can't use a knife like you would use a hammer or a whip, because most people have a rough idea of how a knife is used. To quote Antonio Banderas: "pointy end goes into the other guy."

I can't say the same is true of elements and energies. First of all, most people don't really have a very solid grasp of how they work in reality, and the mythbusters have proven this time and time again. You'd THINK an explosion could send a bulldozer 100 feet into the air, but an explosion with enough energy to do that will also shred it into shrapnel. There's no way to say "THAT is how electricity would be used in hand-to-hand combat" simply because you're making it up from the word go. People can shoot electricity from their hands, so anything you come up with is based on fiction. Which isn't bad, but is also very "unspecific" and open to everyone's interpretation.

Your example is very good, actually, in that it depicts our two very different takes on what constitutes "electricity." The way you explain electricity sounds like you're banking on a steady stream of high-energy current, like what you'd get if you stuck a fork in a power socket. It's the cartoony effect where someone gets shocked for 10 seconds straight and you can see his skeleton and his hair goes all spiky. I'm approaching this from pretty much the other direction - that of an electric condenser. This doesn't rely on power flow, but rather on the build-up of a strong charge which, when it reaches critical state, will arc across an insulating medium, cover distance and deliver a large shock all at once. It's basically the difference between Electrical Blast for Blasters (which fizzes, buzzes and crackles) and My Striker electricity (which explodes with a thunderclap and a sudden jolt).

Neither is wrong, strictly speaking, but by creating a concept specific to one, you're more or less locking out the other. For instance, when BABs and Castle made Shield Defence, technical limitations forced them to make a lot of the powers passive and conceptual limitations forced them to make those passives about something OTHER than the shield, so they instead made the shield user very strong and tough. This was quite out of concept for a lot of my shield users, however, since the first one I made was a technologist using a tech shield with a forcefield attached to it. Moreover, Castle designed Shield Defence with a very strong slant towards Greek Phalanx warfare and the concept of a shield wall, hence Phalanx Phighting, Grant Cover and so forth. This, in turn, has been VERY inappropriate for my shield users because it's not something I even thought about when I first heard the idea.

Champions, actually, has this problem to a much bigger extent, as you've seen. Someone sat down and wondered "OK, so how does one use Earth powers?" Someone then came up with the idea that... Well, you cover yourself in rock and hit people with giant fists. Hence, Rock was put in the "brick" general category and is now a a tanking power. All because someone wanted to be very specific in how one used stone differently from fire and wind, but in so doing, he completely sidelined the set's usability as a control tool. You can still do it, but that's not what the set was designed around.

Basically, I'd be leery of designing sets that are too specific, because you tend to narrow the concepts of people who can use them SIGNIFICANTLY unless you create many redundant sets from the same element or energy to offer different fighting styles for the same general idea.

Blasters are conceptually very open and very appealing, but in actual practice they are ****. I'm sorry for being coarse in my language, but at this point it doesn't seem like balancing concerns will ever be resolved so I just can't keep up my air of politeness about an AT I simply cannot play. I tried to. I got multiple Blasters to 50 and it was never fun. Not for a minute. I kept telling myself it'll get better and it never did. Too little health, too little personal protection, jack **** for status protection... I got tired of living in constant fear for my life, so I rerolled as ATs that let me play badly and still succeed.

Dominators weren't as torturous to play, but they also weren't as entertaining. I HATE playing like a Controller, and it seemed like that was the only path to success as a Dominator. I'd have loved to be able to play all the ATs, it's just that their mechanical design made it impossible for me to enjoy doing so, hence why I stuck to the ATs I enjoyed.

And yeah, I know about the Blaster changes. It doesn't give them armours, it doesn't give them status protection, so it's not enough of a change. It makes it much more fun to play a Blaster if you wanted to play it LIKE a Blaster, but I, unfortunately, don't. I don't want to play carefully and tactically and fret every decision. I like being a powerhouse, hence why I stuck to the fiercely independent ATs.

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.

Can't speak for DC, but if you want to try Champions, I'd stock up on toilet paper. The amount of corporate structure ******** you'll have to go through with Perfect World will frustrate you to no end, especially if you have an old Cryptic Account that you want to link to a Perfect World account. Remember - PWE doesn't let you have spaces or capital letters in your account name and it will never let you change that name after you make it, not even how you show up on their forums.

I'd suggest doing all the account-linking hogwash from the Star Trek site, actually. Champions seems to have fallen by the wayside in favour of Star Trek so that's the site with the better interface that doesn't have scores of broken links.

As for pitches... About the only thing I can really praise Champions for is that's the place to go if you want to make a character with a wide variety of abilities traditional MMOs would never let you have on the same character. Guns and swords, blast and armour and so on. Well, and if you like complexity, because there's a HELL of a lot of complexity to the build system in Champions. And for extra fun, their Wiki is a few months and a MAJOR expansion out-of-date. Basically, go there if you always wanted to make a type of character other games won't let you have.

Oh, and if you hate comic books. Champions feels like it was made by someone who thought comic books were stupid and set out to make fun of them. At least, that's how it reads to me.

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.

It's all I got I like champions for letting me have stuff I can't get anywhere else, not even here, but BOY HOWDY am I paying for it in other ways. It's not a bad game, but it's like an endless list of parade of good idea bad idea.

Good idea: Being able to pick gloves boots and accessories for each side separately.
Bad idea: Being unable to COLOUR gloves boots and accessories for each side separately (bug, most likely)

Good idea: Having extensive face and body modification sliders.
Bad idea: Having one face that doesn't change all that much and a basic body frame that's hard to make look humanoid.

Good idea: Having extensive voice acting for signature characters.
Bad idea: Having extensive voice acting for signature characters that's also terrible and intentionally campy.

Good idea: Having a story about a crime syndicate that lost its leader and is being run by his upstart son.
Bad idea: Having a story about a crime syndicate hat dress in all purple and wear giant novelty cowboy hats.

Good idea: Having stories specifically balanced around being done on a team.
Bad idea: Having stories specifically balanced around being done on a team that don't let you know they're team-only until the final mission.

Good idea: Being able to customize the model of summoned entities.
Bad idea: Being unable to customize the COLOUR of summoned entities.

I'm sorry for the bad stand-up routine, but Champions has the potential to be a great game, if only every good idea it had weren't counterbalanced by bugs, terrible execution, stilted gameplay or just a plain bad idea. If you can play a game for its potential of awesomeness, few are as good as Champions given what's happening to City of Heroes. But it's a trying experience.

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.

Not that I disagree with your argument in sum; in fact, I think you're spot-on, and your point about the facial/body sliders is a pet peeve of mine stretching back to CO's launch in 2009 (?).

But to be fair, I think the Purple Gang in CO is based on this real life gang, and if I recall correctly, the Gang was pulled from the Champions IP, so their inclusion in the video-game version of the IP is at worst a forgivable mistake.

The tone of the story-telling over there is painfully campy, though, or at least that was how I felt about it for the year or so I was first active over there. Haven't gotten a chance to try the new stuff yet.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

I already pointed this out once earlier in this thread, but I don't recall you responding to it:

Brick powers are not tanking powers. Brick powers are basically "heavy melee powers." Super strength and heavy weapons, for example. You can design characters with these powers to be melee DPS or tanks, but you're not forced to be a tank just because you go for that powerset. At best, they're biased toward a melee role, just as sorcery is biased toward support roles and most elemental powersets are biased toward ranged dps. But you can take any of these powersets and build toward tanking, dps, support or possibly any two of the three if you can manage it. Your earth character can just as easily use way of the warrior as you could defiance.