Don't forget the foot stomp AoE and the sonicboom handclap cone attack. Both classics.

Also, if you're SUPER strong, couldn't you just flick a penny at the badguy with your fingers and put it like right through them?

I see insurance costs are gonna go up in Titan City.

Be Well!
Fireheart

I can see having a "ranged superstrength" power being able to do more damage as you level up because you become more experienced in knowing how to make the amount of strength you have work better. But for some reason it seems weird to me to be able to get physically stronger as a direct function of leveling up. If you go by what Cyclops is suggesting it would be as if your character could lift more weight as he/she levels up. This would be like a D&D character getting a point of strength every time they leveled up. How would you rationalize that?

Obviously different superhero characters have different levels of strength - some can lift a car whereas others can lift aircraft carriers. But most superheroes don't CHANGE how much they can lift based on how much experience they earn. I have no problem with players being able to define/describe how much strength their characters possess based on using different kinds of customizable animations. I just don't know how you'd easily justify being able to throw a motorcycle one day then being able to throw a 747 the next.

Cyclops wrote:

No, these are four separate powers. The animation just creates a vehicle for you to throw.

EDIT: OK this basically answers my concern as well. Having one low level power that could evolve upward (implying that you're getting physically stronger) just for leveling up seemed weird to me.

Fireheart wrote:

Well, health and damage do go up, as one levels up. So the animations might change as a character's damage threshold climbs. I just have problems with summoning aircraft carriers out of thin air, just so one can spear and smear their enemy with them. I'd rather the character could scoop up a Rock and 'thumb-snap Rail-gun' the opponent with it. Sorta not like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gLMZpD3izY

Again I'd have no problem with things like damage, speed and accuracy getting better with a power like this as you'd level up. Those are the things that are intrinsically tied to having more "experience" at doing something. I don't even have a problem with a human weightlifter being able to dead-lift more over time as they get stronger. I guess once you start talking about the incredible scales of "superhuman" strength you'd have to better "explain" how the superhuman strength works in the first place. I mean if you're barely strong enough to lift and toss a golf cart a few dozen yards at one point it doesn't seem like you'd automatically be expected to be able to toss an Egyptian pyramid a few dozen miles later on unless whatever's making you super-strong is somehow that flexible to allow for such a huge difference in magnitude. Bottomline most of the time people's superpowers (in this case super-strength) in comic books just don't radically change that much over time.

Then of course there's always the question of how to handle "[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammerspace]Hammerspace[/url]". Sure a character might be strong enough to toss aircraft carriers around but how do you reasonably explain that you just happen to have one handy in your pocket ready to be tossed? I'd be more willing to overlook that bit of "fantasy" if players could choose from a range of randomized hammerspace objects that all fit a "range" of strength that matches their power. Let's say a character is defined (for whatever reason) to be able to toss around car-sized objects. The list of possible things that character might choose to throw should never be heavier than roughly a car-sized object. They could toss around all sorts of things that would be lighter than that, but never anything bigger.

desviper wrote:

I feel like 4 ranged attacks is a bit much for an physical melee theme. However, maybe you could have a tertiary set for physical damage (or whathaveyou) and have an animation that throws or otherwise strikes by throwing various objects.

Considering that "super strength" will most likely not be a power theme but rather an aesthetic theme then I think that at least making it available to assault sets would not be that far fetched, and since assault are mixed ranged and melee it's fairly appropriate with 4 ranged ones. Though since we don't know how many powers there will be in total in primary/secondary sets we can't say for sure but I expect some to slant more towards a ranged style while others slant more towards a melee style.

The penny that Radiac mentioned [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/109417#comment-109417]above[/url] reminded me of a scene with Rogue, using a Susan B. Anthony dollar coin against a helicarrier. A quarter would've been nearly as effective and cheaper ^_^.

One improvised ranged weapon that was popular in our tabletop supers games was the manhole cover: nearly solid iron or steel, fairly heavy, reasonably aerodynamic, and much cheaper than a car to repair or replace. Many of them were marked with the logo of the Frisby Manhole Cover Company...

But I think Fireheart is right, super strength is usually melee in western comics, and only occasionally used at range. I can see a choice of animations for such an improvised thrown weapon, but not much point in having more than one such power per character. Perhaps slotting for MOAR DAMAGE would allow more choices of thrown weapon, to be randomly or environmentally selected on use? And then choosing only the FMCC Flying Disk or the Tiny Ubiquitous or Indeterminate Object would demonstrate that you are a (semi) responsible hero. ^_^

Foradain wrote:

And then choosing only the FMCC Flying Disk or the Tiny Ubiquitous or Indeterminate Object would demonstrate that you are a (semi) responsible hero. ^_^

Not just for "heroes" of course... naughty villains can toss them as well. Check out the following video starting at around the 3:42 mark...

[youtube]Fc5DzEvaNHg[/youtube]

Flinging manhole covers appears to be common enough scenario in the superhero genre that no matter how this particular superstrength power/theme is handled in CoT I'd hope there will be some common variation of it usable by players in in the game.

i wouldn't mind seeing a Super Strength character be able to walk up to a light pole (or other objects) and rip it out and toss it at foes. Alternate animations having the object be ripped out and tossed up in mid air, and punched or kicked at the foes as it starts to fall back down.

Foes that have enough knockback resistance can duck. Rest can go flying back a few feet.

Of course, doing city property damage too often might impact alignment, or such standings.
Unless, you pay the city fine! Then, no worries. ;)

Lothic wrote:

Being able to grab "anything" in a game's environment and throw it to damage enemies is the constant "holy grail" that pretty much everybody who plays these games wants to have eventually. Of course the hurdles of the animations/physics involved to implement that, not to mention questions about "evironmental persistance" in a MMO, have continued to make doing things like this mostly a pipe-dream.
I hope CoT can somehow finally solve those age-old problems, but I won't hold it against them when they can't. ;)

Actually, DCUO has this, pretty much. There are only so many things to grab, but anything that can be grabbed can be picked up... if you are strong enough. While all characters are strong enough to throw around soda machines, boulders and the like; there is an optional superpower ability that gives you increased 'weaponization' and which also allows you to pick up things like trucks and cars that other players can not.

So it has already been done, and with much older technology.

Izzy wrote:

i wouldn't mind seeing a Super Strength character be able to walk up to a light pole (or other objects) and rip it out and toss it at foes. Alternate animations having the object be ripped out and tossed up in mid air, and punched or kicked at the foes as it starts to fall back down.

Champions Online has this if I recall correctly - it's one of those things that's neat at first, but after you do it a few times you never do it again - at least that's my experience with it. Not sure if it's really worth the effort, personally.

Lothic wrote:

I was aware of what DCUO had done in this area - I played the game for around its first six months or so. But my recollection of it was that you were limited to a very few specifically throwable items, not "any" item in the environment. In any event what DCUO had accomplished in this area was relatively restrictive overall and I only remember it as a cumbersome "nice try" on the path towards the real universal implementation of this.
I suppose CoT could try to provide more or less what DCUO did, but since I was sort of non-plused by it I have no overwhelming desire for it. I kind of see this issue as a "All or Nothing" kind of thing and until a game can actually "figure it all out" I'm not too eager to get another half-baked solution for it. *shrugs*

Okay, I went in and ran a few test missions. As near as I can figure it, there are three types of objects in the DCUO world. Fragile, Breakable and Big.

Almost everything in the DCUO world is fragile and will disintegrated with a single attack. You can not interact with fragile items except to stand on them. They include park benches, file cabinets,flowerpots, some statues and desks, and just about every decorative item in the world. Police stations are nothing but 4 walls and an empty room after a duel is fought in one because all the furniture, plants and artwork disintegrates in the battle. I can see this being justified to an extent. If you are going to hit someone with a flourescent light bulb, it doesn't matter how strong you are, the light bulb will break before it transfers much energy into what you struck. So a superpowered character weilding a wooden park bench would break it over another super's head the same way one of us would break a light bulb. I'll have to think on that.

Back to DCUO: You can attack the Breakable category things and they will start to crumple and finally disintegrate if you keep attacking them. You can also pick them up and throw them or use them to bash your enemies without throwing them. They will disintegrate after all their hit points are consumed (three bashes max, minus whatever damage they've already received). Barrels, crystals, bombs, vending machines, crates, and some statues are in this category.

The Big category includes things players can damage but it takes a lot of damage to destroy them. They will continue to show signs of damage until they eventually disintegrate, usually in an explosion. These things can not be picked up except by people who have elected to have the Super Strength iconic power. They include cars and trucks, some large pieces of equipment like generators and kolto tanks, etc. People with Super Strength can wield these Big items as other people can wield Breakable items, except they do twice the damage in addition to the Super Strength also doing twice the damage for a total of three times the damage of a normal sized object.

Not sure where I was going with this now, other than to make a more informed statement about what DCUO offers.

I think the technology is there and has been done and done well (in my opinion). If we could use what is fragile in the DCUO world and make them one-use items in our world, we would have an enormous amount of improvised weapons. It would be like a John Wayne bar fight with people breaking stools and chairs and tables and bottles on each other, but with benches and lampposts and power transformers.

Huckleberry wrote:

Okay, I went in and ran a few test missions. As near as I can figure it, there are three types of objects in the DCUO world. Fragile, Breakable and Big.

If the Devs of CoT can make something like this work on a more or less unversal level I'd be fine with it. I guess the main thing that tends to ruin my suspension of disbelief where it comes to throwable/usable objects in games like this is when there are "some" items that allow players to interact with them and some that don't. To me it's sort of like another case of the "uncanny valley" applied to physical objects instead of whether characters look real or not.

I realize that my desire for 100% interaction with the environment might be a bit unreasonable given the way games work today. But to me I'll say again I'd rather have it "all or nothing" instead of a sort of half-way version where I have to know what I can throw and what I can't.

Huckleberry wrote:

Lothic wrote:
I'd rather have it "all or nothing" instead of a sort of half-way version where I have to know what I can throw and what I can't.
I can see where you're coming from with this. Even if we could thrown anything, we'd still have the problem associated with user interface telling the game you want to pick something up. There really is no time-sensitive way that would make this worth doing in a battle. The effect would have to be worth the time and effort to find, pick up and throw something.
I can see doing this outside of battle when time is not as crucial, like the click-the-glowwies forum thread is discussing.
But if we wanted to use our surroundings in battle, here is a poroposal of a way that MIGHT work:
First, lets assume that Lothic gets Lothic's wish and everything that could be is throwable.
Second, lets say that in battle everything that is throwable gets some kind of highlight when you get within grabbing range. In DCUO things are only highlited if you are close and facing it, and only one thing is highlighted at a time to indicate which item you will be interacting with. But for our purposes in CoT, lets say that everything within grabbing range gets highlighted. Then when you activate your Throw Random Crap, it will be a two-part power. When you depress the button you perform a sweeping animation that encompasses your immediate area and covers the fact that the animation doesn't have you exactly picking up any particular object in that sweep, but at the end of that animation the object is in your hand. In this case it would ba the closest object to you, so at least there is a little predictability. When you let go of the button, you throw it and the power will require you to be facing your target or it will just toss the object harmlessly away.
This way you just need to be near enough to pick something up without having to worry about precise positioning and facing.
Thoughts?

I understand that much of the problem with implementing a "pick up anything you want" power is figuring out how to make the user interface for that work. Its the same limitation that more or less prevents characters like Mister Fantastic from happening because exactly how you'd contol how all your limbs would stretch around manually would be nightmarishly difficult.

Coming up with a universally generic "pick up object" animation and having the interface be able to target the closest single item directly in front of you might be feasible as workaround compromises. It would still suffer from not looking completely "appropriate" in all (or even most) situations (i.e. the animation to rip up a lightpole and toss it should look quite a bit different from picking up a motorcycle and tossing it).

For what it's worth I'm willing to have some clever Devs figure out a way to make this all look "passible" enough to be worthwhile. I'd agree that something like this would be far more doable in a non-combat mission situation but again the "holy grail" would be that this kind of thing could work anywhere with anything.

Fireheart wrote:

Just because we're Able to pick up and throw 'anything' does not make it effective. My experience with games that allow using the scenery this way is that, by the time you locate an appropriate object, pick it up, target your opponent, and hurl the thing, you'd have done more DPS by hurling Yourself and using your own powers.
Be Well!
Fireheart

And that is the biggest problem when implementing "weaponizable environment", making it more than a gimmick but still not a better choice overall than normal powers.

Fireheart wrote:

Just because we're Able to pick up and throw 'anything' does not make it effective. My experience with games that allow using the scenery this way is that, by the time you locate an appropriate object, pick it up, target your opponent, and hurl the thing, you'd have done more DPS by hurling Yourself and using your own powers.

blacke4dawn wrote:

And that is the biggest problem when implementing "weaponizable environment", making it more than a gimmick but still not a better choice overall than normal powers.

I'd completely agree that being able to use "anything" as a weapon is only useful if you happen to be near an object that could be used as such. Just like in real life if there are no rocks lying around to throw at someone then you're not likely going to be throwing rocks in that scenario.

Obviously this would be completely situational. No one's suggesting that we would all forget about using any of our other powers just to run half-a-mile out of our way to find a city bus to hurl. But if during the course of battle you just happen to find yourself standing right next to a city bus it would obviously be cool if the OPTION to use it as a makeshift weapon was allowed.

Fireheart wrote:

And I'm sure the driver and passengers of the city bus REALLY want to go for the ride....

Well if you're playing a naughty villain I'd think it'd be completely in character. ;)

[youtube]tYKixIJ-lz8[/youtube]