Warning: small wall of text.
So, during CoH's run, I played a Mastermind constantly. A demon summoner that I got all the way up to incarnate abilities, and was wrecking face with them. I've tried to emulate such a character in other games, but it's just not feasible in most. But since MWM has made no secret they want to include pet powers at a later date, I felt it prudent to offer up my suggestions for what would be the coolest way to handle things in this regard. It perhaps wouldn't be as easy, but it'd give people a lot of freedom of choice, which I believe is what a CoH successor, spiritual or otherwise, should have. On to my main bits
The first bit is in keeping with aesthetic decoupling MWM plans to use; first, you'd choose you class of minions. What I mean by this is simple; your very first choice for your pet powers would be one of three, a "Swam", a "Team", or a "Brute".
A "Swarm" refers a large number of tiny critters under your command. Perhaps spider drones, imps, or a horde of badgers. This setup would focus on the player being a tacitican, setting up power combos with his pets to overwhelm an opponent through numbers, and summoning more of any pets that get mulched. The individual pets would be fairly weak, but as a group and operated effectively, they could be terrifying. the idea of this would favor a large number of pets - something like ten, certainly. but if they're small enough, there's no reason they'd truly clutter the screen. an effective player could potentially even organize "Squad" macros, splitting his minions into teams for better tactical command.
A "Team" setup is similar to what we had in CoH, but without the 6th, extremely powerful minion. The idea is 3-5 minions that work in tandem with one another and support each other and work together. This would suggest a similar tactical mindset to the Swarm style, but you minions are less expendable by a fair degree, but they'd also be more powerful and perhaps could take a hit or two before being reduced to pavement gristle.
A "Brute" would be a single massive pet doing the lion's share of the work for you. In this instance, you're looking at a single companion that you focus on keeping alive and only resummon when it's necessary, which you don't want to happen, so you keep it standing and fighting because you yourself are quite squishy. The "brute" would have several control abilities, but more of a focus on damage than anything else, I think, with a hearty amount of health to keep them alive in the face of super-powered threats. Especially with you to back it up with buffs and healing abilities.
Then comes powers, right? Everybody wants to customize what their minions are capable of. The simplest way to do this is by giving a short list to choose powers for each pet type a Single huge super punch doesn't make sense in the hands of a swarm, and a similar power that buffs your teammates and nothing else would make more sense for a squad of minions than for a brute to have. In the swarm examples above, I mentioned spider drones. Spider drones that latch on and hinder the enemy, other ones that shoot small bursts of lightning, another one that hits with razor blades. There's a similar idea for the team and brute options, allowing them to choose from a relatively short list of powers to make their own. This would allow the devs to keep at least some semblance of balance by dictating whether using a certain few powers in tandem is too much. Some things may also not be thematically appropriate, such as giving a lord of the hells an assault rifle, but I suppose then it's the player's fault if people roll their eyes.
Only after this would be thematic concerns. Certainly, you'd be choosing your power theme near the start as per with any other powers, but mechanically things would be very similar. A single all-powerful demon raining hellfire down on your foes is not so different from an artillery based attack drone, after all - everything explodes, fire everywhere, you know the drill.
I'd think selecting an appearance "Template" would be the best choice, and then allowing some customization to that template. Let's take some brute examples. A Pit Lord could be many things, from the skinless skull creature from CoH, to a suave demon that looks like a horned, blue skinned human, to a WoW-esque monstrosity towering above all with a huge glaive in its hands. A killer robot could be a bulky haphazard thing that looked like it climbed out of junkyard, or it could be made out of car parts, or it could be alien-ish future tech, sleek in build if not in size. a beastmaster could summon a huge mutant animal, such as a wolf, a bear, or similar, or they could, for some reason, have a dinosaur. The T-rex is quite popular. finally, say someone has a pet dragon - you could customize whether it's simply an overgrown wyvern, an eastern dragon, or a western dragon - the end result is largely the same, and that's the point.
In the case of pets large enough to sustain your weight (so, basically, brutes), if you found a way to integrate vehicle mechanics into them, that could be an entire travel power in itself. Get carried around by a demon., take a ride on the back of your killer robot, mount up on your tyrannosaurs to go down main street, or mount up on a dragon to fly with all the other supers.
Obviously, these are things I would like. In an ideal world, I'd get everything I wanted, but I'm not so egotistical as to believe that everything I've listed here is easy, or even feasible. If I had to choose, I'd prefer the pet sizes (swarm/team/brute) be what goes through, but that's just my two cents.
Anyways, yeah. Comments? Criticism? Blatant insults over my poor grasp of mechanics?
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
I'm playing Aion to try desperately to occupy my need for gaming while I wait impatiently for CoT to be released. In that game is a character class called the Spirit Master. That is the only true pet class in the game. They have, by approximately level 25, four different pets from which to choose. Each has it's own focus and damage type but all are roughly equal in power albeit in different ways. You can, however, only have one out at a time. It's almost like your pet is a toggle power (although not literally). This would be the brute option you're describing if I'm not mistaken.
I hate it. I loved MasterMinds because of the pets and I went straight to the Spirit Master thinking it would be at least somewhat similar. Not remotely. Having only one pet, or even several pets of similar power levels, is not the joy of being a Mastermind. The thrill of being a Mastermind was in having several pets of varying strengths and abilities out simultaneously and using those differences to bolster your tactics and stratagems. First you can send in an expendable minion to draw the attention of the group, then send in the rest of the minions to start the softening. Send in your Lts to truly break some faces while you and your Boss protect the rest and smack down the group. It's a delicate dance and requires both brawn and brains.
Having a choice between a swarm of pets all being the same, a team of pets all being the same or a single brute of a pet and being restricted to those choices, I'll play a controller.
Just my two cents.
CoyoteShaman
I never once said all the pets would be the same. Actually, when I was writing this post, the "Team" selection had included a warrior/mage/rogue paradigm that i inevitably dropped from the OP because I know some people would balk at the restriction. My point is that customization, including of variable minions, is what I want. Sorry for not making that clear.
As a side note, based on the way that they're arranging powers, I don't think there'd actually be anything stopping you from taking all three forms of pets.
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
I think these would be better as additional options rather than a replacement.
not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM
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As a software developer, the word "or" means something specific to me. It means "one of the possibilities listed and only one". I often forget that the word is used differently by many people.
Although, to be honest, most languages use XOr to mean one and only one, and Or to mean at least one, but my normal programming technique is to use Or as XOr. It's probably just me.
At any rate, that misunderstanding is on my shoulders, not yours.
I do, however, wonder then at your meaning when you said "...your first choice of pet powers..." and then when on to talk about "Then comes powers..." without listing further summoning powers. How do you see additional and different pets being introduced in this schema? What would be the progression? How would the lower level powers advance as your character increases in levels if you chose to have a swarm at the beginning? Similarly, how would they advance if you chose a brute at the beginning?
The side/support powers that are also in the set are very secondary to me. I know there were MMs who chose to use the other powers mainly and avoided using the pets, but I always felt that was a little like a controller not using holds. To me, the progression of the pet powers, and their change over the level progression of the character, was one of the most interesting and "Super" traits of the class. It would be difficult for me to give an actual opinion on a concept for a power set dealing with pets without that information.
Thank you.
CoyoteShaman
I'm really sorry for the wording trouble. I've a mental health issue that makes talking in coherent and consistent phrases a pain, and often that bleeds into longer posts like the OP. I can't stop it, so it's not just you that got confused by the whole thing. I think in concepts rather than phrases, so explaining things can get... muddled.
Let me lay out a bit of an idea of how I'd handle it. Say you got five powers by the level cap in your primary specialty. In this case, we'll say it's robotics, just for the sake of reference. Your powerset could look like:
1. Brute Drone
2. Brute upgrade
3. Brute Upgrade
4. Healing ability
5. Team Resurrect
And that'd give you a really solid single pet build. You could swap the Brute out for a team or a swarm, customize the individual bots to your liking, and the build would largely be the same. But what if you wanted something else?
Here's another idea
1. Brute Drone
2. Team Drones
3. Area buff
4. Area buff/Heal
5. Upgrade to one of your drone sets
And looking at that, you have both the team and the drone. I doubt the AoE buffs would be as powerful as the direct upgrades, but it'd allow for a different level of customization there, I think.
Now, obviously, this doesn't entirely work. I don't know how the power setups are being made. I'm no programmer, and I don't know the numbers. it makes sense to me, however.
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
I intend no offense when I say this, but that system is far too radically different to qualify as a successor to the mastermind style pet primary.
Every combination of primary and secondary that is available to players should have at least one attack available within those two sets. While it is true that many mastermind players skipped the personal attacks, this is because masterminds as a whole were a nightmare to balance without even going into the balance between different mastermind primaries. Demon summoning and Necromancy were the only sets that had tolerable personal attacks due to secondary effects.
While MWM is not bound by the rules of the old game to make sure that personal attacks suck, they are bound by the rule that the game must be fun to play. This means that they must walk a careful balance line so that any personal attacks in the primary aren't duplicated in the secondaries or tertiary sets.
Because of the basic rule of no internal power duplication, this also means that no pet primary set will have any buffs that affect anything other than the pets. The current planned pairings for pet powers are, I believe, pets and support (buff/debuff); pets and assault (mixed melee and range); and pets and manipulation (mix of melee and mild control). This means that we are unlikely to see a pet primary with any melee personal attacks, and ranged attacks may even be limited to AoE powers to avoid duplication with ranged assault powers.
The original Lady of Ysgard. -Virtue
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Let me throw a different notion at you.
GhostSheepFromHell has already clarified that Foe NPCs in the game will simply be "player characters driven by an AI" (in effect).
The same could be done for "Mastermind" Pets as a part of an archetype. It would wind up being a lot like creating Minions/Lieutenants/Bosses did in Architect Entertainment ... where you'd be "building" your Pets according to a set of rules that defines what they have available to them, and then you pick a [i]subset of those options[/i] to use to define your Pets. Why? Because the Pets are just NPCs that are driven by an AI [i]that receives command instructions from a Player[/i].
So if you look at it that way, you could have a "Mastermind" character in City of Titans who got to have some degree of say in which Powers their Pets can use (ie. not all of the ones available for each type) as well as deciding how those particular Powers manifest and animate (the age old shoot from a gun/wand/animated companion pet/forehead/chest/eyes/fingertips/etc. choice). Want gang members toting submachine guns? You can do it. Want gang members lock and loading automatic rifles? You can do it. Want your gang members to have hovering gun drones that accompany them that shoot bullets? Want them to shoot lasers instead of bullets? You can do it. Want them to hurl dozens of shurikens instead of shooting bullets? You can do it.
If the "ordinary" Foe NPCs on the streets can be "PCs driven by an AI" then it's perfectly possible to make "Mastermind" Pets simply be "yet more PCs driven by an AI directed by a Player" and then you've got it all. Reusable code, reusable costuming, reusable animations.
The trick, of course, then becomes deciding how to "balance" the Mastermind Pets ... but even then you've still got guidelines to help you. Foe NPCs on the street come in Minion, Lieutenant and Boss varieties. Mastermind Pets come in- oh hey, would you look at that ... Minion, Lieutenant and Boss varieties.
Balancing them might be tricky, but it isn't as if you'll be working without a net ... so to speak.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Red, I would cry tears of joy for even a fraction of what you just said.
Let's start simply: You have your choice of pets as the OP suggested. Design them templates so that one Brute is (roughly) equal to 3-5 Lts is equal to 8-12 minions. So if you want you can take the one Brute, several Lts or a horde of Minions. Alternately, you could swap a few Minions for a couple of Lts and have a mixed bag. One Brute is always one Brute however.
Now on to attacks. Minions pick from List A (choice of one of Melee or Ranged in a variety of flavors), Lts from List B and so on. Limiting the choices makes it easier to balance. All pets also get a defensive pick as well. So yes...you CAN take shuriken-throwing robots with Reflexes as their defense. They would act the same as shuriken-throwing Ninjas (bots fly and Ninjas get stealth) as shuriken-throwing zombies. Wow...maybe not...lots of animations to do there.
Even if the custom building thing came later, I'd be thrilled with the option of selecting the number and types of pets I get.
How would you feel about buffs from the MM being spread over the pets? Buffing the Brute gets a LOT of buff but you only have the one. Buffing the horde means they have to share the buff so each is less powerful but you have a lot of them and can get more easily.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
buff so each is less powerful no just no
whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster and when you look into the abyss, the abyss also look into you, -Friedrich
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The Inverse Ninja Law ... also known as the [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConservationOfNinjutsu]Conservation of Ninjitsu[/url] ... is something that works wonderfully in STORIES, particularly stories that are written and therefore "fixed" in terms of outcomes by an author (of some sort). Whether it's a legend or a novel or a movie or whatever, the Inverse Ninja Law effectively relies on a need to dramatically raise the stakes of the conflict.
That doesn't work in a GAME ... let alone a MMORPG, action oriented or not. In a game, things have to be balanced, and the Inverse Ninja Law goes directly against most of the precepts of game balance. It's great when used as a trope to heighten the conflict in a story, but doesn't work all that well as a game mechanic.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I'm open to different configurations or topologies of pets, but CoT needs to keep open, as an option, the Mastermind who only manages pets during battle and lets pets do all the work. You buff/heal them, debuff monsters (typical secondary type powers) but the one thing you don't do is directly attack.
I have to keep saying it, I don't want a game where I am forced to do any, much less the lion's share, of pew pewing, with pets acting as minor support and minor DOTs.
If I wanted to run around rootin' tootin' shootin' with supportive pets in tow, I'd play...every other MMO out there.
The bossless MM with just minions and lts. seems like going in the wrong direction.
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
Should try Wildstar with the engineer... those bots are the main reason why the engineer is as powerful as it is (one of the best DPS classes, and a decent tank class as well).
And like City of Heroes, there are those who have the "petless" Engineer builds. I am tempted to try one of these, they are apparently quite an experience to play with.