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Inspirations, Enhancement Salvage , and Influence

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Huckleberry
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Inspirations, Enhancement Salvage , and Influence

I don't know how much of what was done in CoX will be done in CoT. However, I have seen enough to know that Influence will be the in-game currency.

Influence, while not an actual currency, is assumed to be as fungible as a currency and will be used as legal tender for all debts, so for all intents and purposes it is a currency. Having said that, however, I still don't want to divorce Influence from its lore-based roots. It is based on the concept of heroes and villians being able to peddle their influence in return for favors and things.

And that brings me to inspirations and enhancement salvage. I make all of the following statements based on these three assumptions:

  1. inspirations or something like it will be included in the game
  2. there will be an enhancement crafting system in the game
  3. enhancements can be crafted from things that drop from enemies

Rather than treating these as random drops, I propose that inspirations and enhancement salvage are generated by the interactions of the characters with their opponents.

Inspirations: For example, if a character gets below 10% hit points and does not get knocked out, he has learned something about himself, his limits, and what it takes to power on through adversity. And so the character is awarded a 'wakie' inspiration. If a character takes a critical hit, she learns the painful lesson not to expose her kidneys to that punch from behind again, and so she gets a defense inspiration. And so forth. To prevent gaming this too much, a proc rate of 1 inspiration per type per opponent would make sense.

Enhancement Salvage: Each mission you run would have a few optional challenges. If you complete a challenge, you are rewarded an enhancement or some enhancement salvage associated with it. For example, you start a mission and are given three challenges such as find the hidden cash boxes, defeat 3 opponents in a single attack, and use only melee attacks. The challenges are random each mission and some of them can be very very difficult or impossible to accomplish with your particular character build and some of them will be no problem at all. Skyforge does this and here is a link to the types of challenges that can be found in Skyforge missions: http://skyforge.wikia.com/wiki/Bonus_Objectives
The important thing here for CoT is that the challenge should be related to an enhancement or the salvage to make such an enhancement. For example, if you find the cash boxes, you get an enhancement that increases influence or drop rate, or a piece of salvage to build such an enhancement. If you succeed in defeat 3 opponents in a single attack, you get an enhacement for AoE attack power. If you succeed in using only melee attacks, it is an enhancement for melee damage. ...and so forth, so long as the enhancement is related to the challenge. This means that if you are a ranger and one of your challenges is the melee attack challenge, you can just ignore it and complete your mission without it, or maybe you can try it anyway and then put the enhancement on the market or give it to one of your alts.
The benefits of the challenges is that it will always give you some interesting playstyle options so as to diversify your playing experience. You can ignore them and perform perfectly well, especially if you have no interest in crafting.
The lore basis for the challenges and associated enhanceemnts is that by practicing behaviors, you improve at them. I think it makes sense and could really increase the fun and replayability of content.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Just to note: Inspirations

Just to note: The equivalent to Inspirations are being rolled into the "Momentum" mechanic. I believe your momentum will be filled as you play the game and will not "drop" like the old CoH inspirations did.

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Also, related to the death

Also, related to the death penalty thread, if you have to respawn during the mission, you forfeit all challenge rewards. (unless there is a challenge for actually dying during the mission and having to respawn... Maybe your increased familiarity with hospitals, and the hospital's familiarity with your character, enable you to have an enhancement that reduces other death penalties like xp debt, respawn timers, or any other penalty the tortured minds of MWM might come up with.)


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

I don't know how much of what was done in CoX will be done in CoT. However, I have seen enough to know that Influence will be the in-game currency.

Yes, it has been suggested that the Devs prefer to think of the in-game currency as similar to Influence. For discussion's sake, we've been calling it 'IGC' (In Game Currency) and the best name we've found, other than 'Influence', is 'IGC'. Because it IS 'fungible', as you mention, and acts like a currency, there is a line of argument that suggests we should not engage in some twisty mental yoga, trying to spin it as 'not money'. Just admit it's money and carry on.

Frankly, I think this reflexive withdrawal from all CoH terms is a bit silly, but whatever.

Be Well!
Fireheart

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We haven't yet settled on a

We haven't yet settled on a term for the in game currency, but have ourselves been using the forum-suggested term IGC in our internal discussions.
Our inspirations are called Reserves. As stated above, Reserves are filled as Momentum naturally decays. There may be other ways to fill or earn Reserves, Momentum is the primary source.
Our enhancements are called Augments and Reserves. Yes they can be crafted, and may use drops.
We will have a system called Challenges and Achievements. They do not directly provide additional drops, but provide a method for obtaining additional reward bonues.
Not all, but some Challenges will fail when a player is Defeated (at least as of this moment). The current "death penalty" is simply that defeat in of itself causes a pause in play time, defeated status prevents earning rewards while defeated. I've made the argument to have Defeat resettting all Challenges related to mission achievements instead of some, but its something we have to actually test out.

Some examples of defeat-related Challenges are an Undefeated Achievement (naturally). Another could be a Stealth Achievement (obviously getting spotted and defeated is a result of loss of stealth). If we have speed-related challenges (such as defeating spawns in certain time frames) a defeat could cost time (very situational, but it certainly adds to the difficulty of challenge). If we can get a form of diplomacy related content working, certainly combat and thus any related defeats would result in any diplomatic challenges being failed. There are other examples, but this is just a few to get the point across.

Finally, anything here is not 'absolute', and subject to change. It is indicative of current direction we're headed however.


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Huckleberry
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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

We haven't yet settled on a term for the in game currency, but have ourselves been using the forum-suggested term IGC in our internal discussions.
Our inspirations are called Reserves. As stated above, Reserves are filled as Momentum naturally decays. There may be other ways to fill or earn Reserves, Momentum is the primary source.
Our enhancements are called Augments and Reserves. Yes they can be crafted, and may use drops.
We will have a system called Challenges and Achievements. They do not directly provide additional drops, but provide a method for obtaining additional reward bonues.
Not all, but some Challenges will fail when a player is Defeated (at least as of this moment). The current "death penalty" is simply that defeat in of itself causes a pause in play time, defeated status prevents earning rewards while defeated. I've made the argument to have Defeat resettting all Challenges related to mission achievements instead of some, but its something we have to actually test out.
Some examples of defeat-related Challenges are an Undefeated Achievement (naturally). Another could be a Stealth Achievement (obviously getting spotted and defeated is a result of loss of stealth). If we have speed-related challenges (such as defeating spawns in certain time frames) a defeat could cost time (very situational, but it certainly adds to the difficulty of challenge). If we can get a form of diplomacy related content working, certainly combat and thus any related defeats would result in any diplomatic challenges being failed. There are other examples, but this is just a few to get the point across.
Finally, anything here is not 'absolute', and subject to change. It is indicative of current direction we're headed however.

Alas, one of the inherent problems of living in the world of 'what could be' in these forums is the inevitable feeling of disappointment when presented with 'what is' with the the game as delivered. No matter how well done 'what is' is. The real thing rarely if ever lives up to the hype. Remember "Star Wars Episode1: The Phantom Menace"?
Our example, a pause in play time as a death penalty is the least desirable of all possible death penalties, for reasons put forth in the death penalty suggestion thread.

I see what you did there in the momentum kickstarter update #112 with the hidden reference to inspirations:

Quote:

Momentum bleed-off turns into Reserves – that extra jolt of willpower, of capability, of heroic might which allows you to temporarily boost your abilities over and beyond what even your powers grant for a brief moment. Those of you from our old home know how inspiring this can be. (Reserves are going to be discussed in detail in a future update.).

Clever.

So am I to understand that our characters will have one of each flavor of Reserve, and they all fill up as momentum bleeds off; such that when one is full we can use it in the same way we used CoH inspirations? I can see this working, and it seems to be a simple and intuitive concept to visualize.

I am encouraged by your mention of challenges and rewards and look forward to hearing more about them when you are ready to talk about it in more detail.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Fireheart wrote:
Fireheart wrote:

Yes, it has been suggested that the Devs prefer to think of the in-game currency as similar to Influence. For discussion's sake, we've been calling it 'IGC' (In Game Currency) and the best name we've found, other than 'Influence', is 'IGC'. Because it IS 'fungible', as you mention, and acts like a currency, there is a line of argument that suggests we should not engage in some twisty mental yoga, trying to spin it as 'not money'. Just admit it's money and carry on.

I recall all the "debates" back on the CoH forums where people passionately argued back-n-forth whether INF was a real currency or just some kind of virtual/mental concept. I never had a problem accepting it as a "currency" for the purposes of the game regardless if my characters had any physical "INF bucks" in their wallets or not but it was amazing how spun up people got over it. Made the current tiff some of us are having over the question of "female mammary" physics in CoT look like child's play. ;)

Fireheart wrote:

Frankly, I think this reflexive withdrawal from all CoH terms is a bit silly, but whatever.

I guess it all depends on how likely it would ever be for NCsoft to want to end up suing MWM for some kind of intellectual property claim. I know it's likely not something we think about too often after all these years but we have to remind ourselves that ultimately MWM is in fact doing its best to sort-of, kind-of copy somebody else's game without their official permission/licensing.

Does this mean that CoT needs to be absolutely 100% different from CoH? Probably not. But all things being equal it makes the most sense to change anything that's easy enough to change in order to minimize the amount of "evidence" that could ever be used against MWM.

So I don't see it so much as a "reflexive withdrawal" from CoH terminology as a "prudent re-imagining". Think of it like the situation in this memorable scene from "Coming to America":

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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To be honest, I'm thinking

To be honest, I'm thinking that Speed Runs is going to be a poor match for either City of Heroes or City of Titans as a "challenge" feature. It puts too much emphasis on "hustle" and DPS throughput, to the exclusion of all else.

However, as a Debt Mitigation "mini-game" feature, there is a possibility here.

AFTER being Defeated, IF you yourself personally Defeat {Character Level * Difficulty Modifier} "worth" of Foes in {insert Time challenge} then the about of Debt you've accrued from your Defeat will be Reduced/Mitigated/Waived.

So what do you get out of this? Well, if you Revive in place, you don't lose time running back from the Hospital ... and if the Timer is 5 minutes or less, that Hospital run could be a significant amount of that time available to Rise to the Challenge ... so ... {knowing look}


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Lothic
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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

To be honest, I'm thinking that Speed Runs is going to be a poor match for either City of Heroes or City of Titans as a "challenge" feature. It puts too much emphasis on "hustle" and DPS throughput, to the exclusion of all else.
However, as a Debt Mitigation "mini-game" feature, there is a possibility here.
AFTER being Defeated, IF you yourself personally Defeat {Character Level * Difficulty Modifier} "worth" of Foes in {insert Time challenge} then the about of Debt you've accrued from your Defeat will be Reduced/Mitigated/Waived.
So what do you get out of this? Well, if you Revive in place, you don't lose time running back from the Hospital ... and if the Timer is 5 minutes or less, that Hospital run could be a significant amount of that time available to Rise to the Challenge ... so ... {knowing look}

One of the more annoying things I recall from CoH were the "speed runs" required for the ski slope badges during the Xmas event. I realize those were completely "optional" so the frustration I put myself through to get the top badge on some of my characters (who didn't have the right combo of powers that made getting those badges much easier for some characters than others) was completely of my own making. Still I mention it here because it involved needing the right amount of "twitch-based manual dexterity" to accomplish which was relatively unique for CoH.

I'm not opposed to ANY timer-based content for CoT. I'm just pointing out that combining timers with "twitch dexterity" oriented tasks is probably something CoT should keep to a bare minimum. Just not the right kind of game for that kind of thing.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

So am I to understand that our characters will have one of each flavor of Reserve, and they all fill up as momentum bleeds off; such that when one is full we can use it in the same way we used CoH inspirations? I can see this working, and it seems to be a simple and intuitive concept to visualize.

My understanding is that it will be similar to how supercharge works in DCUO, that is that it's only one "resource pool" that several abilities can take from and depending on the "strength" and/or nature of the ability they take different amounts.

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blacke4dawn wrote:
blacke4dawn wrote:

My understanding is that it will be similar to how supercharge works in DCUO, that is that it's only one "resource pool" that several abilities can take from and depending on the "strength" and/or nature of the ability they take different amounts.

Blacke4Dawn, I believe you are discussing momentum itself and what it can be used for. Read the description of the relationship between momentum and Resources again, and you will see a deliberate use of the term 'as momentum bleeds off'. In other words, if you don't use momentum for something else, it will bleed off into reserves.

I won't presume to speak for the devs, so you don't have to take my word for it, Kickstarter Update #112 can be found here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/1058094

And here is what it says again:

Quote:

We call it “Momentum.”

Momentum is another statistic bar, like Health and Energy, but unlike those two, it starts off at 0%. When you engage in combat, taking damage, triggering powers, be they attack, defense, buff, debuff, control - whatever your build does to win a fight - your momentum builds. Like health and energy, momentum, when not in active use, “heals.” Health and Energy heal back to full. Momentum slowly drops back to 0%. But it's not a total loss - Momentum bleed-off turns into Reserves – that extra jolt of willpower, of capability, of heroic might which allows you to temporarily boost your abilities over and beyond what even your powers grant for a brief moment. Those of you from our old home know how inspiring this can be. (Reserves are going to be discussed in detail in a future update.).


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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I don't believe they've given

I don't believe they've given any concrete examples of a specific power and how it uses or interacts with Momentum or Reserves so far (correct me if I'm wrong).

That said, I imagine it like this, and this is just one man's attempt at conceptualizing it.

You log in and your Health and Endurance bars are at 100% and your Momentum and Reserves bars are at zero. You go and attack some mobs, and as you use powers and take hits, your Momentum builds up. When that mob is defeated, assuming you have not used up anything, you now have some built up Momentum. Over the next few seconds of inactivity, the momentum bleeds off and the Reserves fills up in some way (1 to 1 ratio, or maybe not). Now when you start your next fight, your Momentum is back at zero again, but you have a non-zero Reserves bar.

I imagine that Momentum will be a thing that powers leverage in various ways. Maybe you can "spend" it by using powers that cause you to do so. More often, I imagine, you'll be using powers and then the effects of those powers might be enhanced by having a high Momentum level. For example, maybe one of your attacks does more damage when you've got a certain amount of Momentum, but then less damage when you have less Momentum, etc. You might be spending the Momentum to gain some effect, like burning fuel, and/or you might be able to build Momentum and then take advantage of being in a state of high Momentum without actually losing it as you use it, like having a temporary adrenaline rush, etc.

Then, when the Momentum goes away naturally as you wind down after the fight is over, your Momentum bar decreases and your Reserves bar increases, perhaps in a simple 1 for 1 proportion, perhaps not. Your Reserves bar will remain fixed until you spend Reserves on something, which can be done, probably, by using the Function keys to spend some Reserves in order to get some specific effect, like self healing, or endurance recovery, or a self-rez, etc. The stuff that Inspirations used to do, for the most part. Maybe not EVERYTHING that Insps used to do, maybe all that and more, who knows.

And then there can always be powers that effect and are effected by your momentum and Reserves. You might have a vampire badguy that has a "There Will Be Blood" power that can drain your Reserves and heal his own health in the process, for example ("I'M drinking YOUR milkshake!"). You might have a mob that has a PBAoE aura that dampens ambient Momentum such that everyone gains less Momentum than normal while in the area of effect, etc. You might have powers that cause you to lose Momentum when you use them instead of what they would normally do, which is to add Momentum. You might have powers that give you some added extra effect by tapping into Reserves when activated, etc.

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

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If *I* were designing the

If *I* were designing the system (which I can assure everyone, I'm not, but I might inspire someone so here goes) ...

I'd introduce a "gearing ratio" between Momentum bleedoff and Reserves. For convenience of illustration, I'm just going to use a 100:1 conversion rate since it makes things easy to get the basic idea, although the numbers can (of course) always be tweaked.

So your Momentum Bar is tracked by an {integer} value from 0-1000 ... kinda like the old Endurance Bar. By default it starts at 0. Certain activities will add to it (hitting/missing, being hit/being missed, dealing Mez, taking Mez, dealing Buffing/Debuffing, taking Buffing/Debuffing, you get the idea) and there can be differing multipliers for the different Momentum builders. Set it up such that Players can "pick their multipliers" so that a "Tanker" builds Momentum faster by "dealing Mez" (i.e. Taunts and Punchvoke) and by "being hit/being missed" (see: Aggro Magnet) while a "Dominator" builds Momentum faster by "dealing Mez" and "hitting/missing" $Targets. Basically do it as a "pick two" for this sort of thing, where you've got a Primary (x3) and a Secondary (x2) "preference" for how to build Momentum for your playstyle, and then everything else gets the "background radiation" level (x1) multiplier for building Momentum from all sources. This then lets different Strategies play differently. Note that "healing" would be considered Buffing/Debuffing for the purposes of this example (it's HP Buffing for Healing, and HP Debuffing for Damage).

When Momentum bleeds off, it fills a "drain" bar of 0-100 at a 1:1 ratio. When the "drain bar" reaches 100, add +1 to Reserves. So filling a Momentum Bar to 1000 and letting it drain back down to 0 would result in 10 Reserves.

The Reserves would be stored as an {integer} value and could be displayed as such.
Reserves: 10
The maximum value for Reserves could potentially be set as being equal to Character Level ... so a Level 30 can have up to Reserves: 30.

Momentum and Reserves ALWAYS start at zero (both) when logging into a character.

Reserves can be "spent" to create Inspiration Effects ... such as Heals, Wakies, Endurance Boosts, Defense Boost, Damage Boost, etc.
Small Effects cost 1 Reserves.
Moderate Effects cost 2 Reserves.
Large Effects cost 3 Reserves.

Set up the "Inspirations Effects" Window to show a 3x8 grid of the available basic types of effects (City of Heroes had 8 basic types, as you can see here) and then you can just click on the one that you need when you need it and {KA-CHING!} pay the Reserves to make and use that type of Inspiration Effect on yourself.


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Yaaaa. Achievement for

Yaaaa. Achievement for completing the game without dying!!!! Permanent death for the character? :) still just happy that my suggestion, whether it because of me or already on the table, might get into the game!!!

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

blacke4dawn wrote:
My understanding is that it will be similar to how supercharge works in DCUO, that is that it's only one "resource pool" that several abilities can take from and depending on the "strength" and/or nature of the ability they take different amounts.
Blacke4Dawn, I believe you are discussing momentum itself and what it can be used for. Read the description of the relationship between momentum and Resources again, and you will see a deliberate use of the term 'as momentum bleeds off'. In other words, if you don't use momentum for something else, it will bleed off into reserves.
I won't presume to speak for the devs, so you don't have to take my word for it, Kickstarter Update #112 can be found here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/1058094
And here is what it says again:
Quote:
We call it “Momentum.”
Momentum is another statistic bar, like Health and Energy, but unlike those two, it starts off at 0%. When you engage in combat, taking damage, triggering powers, be they attack, defense, buff, debuff, control - whatever your build does to win a fight - your momentum builds. Like health and energy, momentum, when not in active use, “heals.” Health and Energy heal back to full. Momentum slowly drops back to 0%. But it's not a total loss - Momentum bleed-off turns into Reserves – that extra jolt of willpower, of capability, of heroic might which allows you to temporarily boost your abilities over and beyond what even your powers grant for a brief moment. Those of you from our old home know how inspiring this can be. (Reserves are going to be discussed in detail in a future update.).

What in there says, or even implies, that both Momentum and Reserve can't function by the same underlying mechanics, a.k.a their own "collective" pool that their respective abilities draw from?

The main difference I was trying to convey was that you thought (or at least expressed) that each type of "inspiration" would have their own bar/pool to fill and thus using one type would not affect your ability to use any other type.

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Huh, I don't remember there

Huh, I don't remember there being that many inspirations. Must've been post i15 stuff.


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Imagine if you had a high

Imagine if you had a high-level nuke AoE power that, as a limitation, requires you to have 100% Momentum and 100% Reserves filled to use it to full potential effect, and then leaves both at 0% after it goes off, but deals massive damage or mez or both.

Also, I'm not sure I like the idea of using stored Reserves to increase damage potential, damage resistance, accuracy, recharge time, or defense, like the Insps used to do, because those applications feel like stuff you'd pop before heading into a fight, not thing's you'd fall back on to help you out after the fight is started and you're running out of steam, which is what I think of when I think "Reserves". For Reserves to live up to their name, I like them more as a self-heal, self-endo-recover, self-rez, self-break-stun, etc type thing. If anything's going to give you added damage, accuracy, recharge rate, etc it ought to be Momentum, I think.

There's design space for powers to use, generate, exhaust, and refill both Momentum and Reserves in various ways, which will be interesting and can cause different builds to work very differently, so I like that. Also, the Augments and Refinements we put in our powers might have effects on that too. Maybe that Proc you put in your attack gives added Dark damage, but at the cost of some Reserves when it goes off (giving the feeling that the dark forces you're manipulating are taking a toll on you as well as the target), maybe the Energy Damage Proc does damage that's defendant on your Momentum level when you use the power, etc.

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

Imagine if you had a high-level nuke AoE power that, as a limitation, requires you to have 100% Momentum and 100% Reserves filled to use it to full potential effect, and then leaves both at 0% after it goes off, but deals massive damage or mez or both.
Also, I'm not sure I like the idea of using stored Reserves to increase damage potential, damage resistance, accuracy, recharge time, or defense, like the Insps used to do, because those applications feel like stuff you'd pop before heading into a fight, not thing's you'd fall back on to help you out after the fight is started and you're running out of steam, which is what I think of when I think "Reserves". For Reserves to live up to their name, I like them more as a self-heal, self-endo-recover, self-rez, self-break-stun, etc type thing. If anything's going to give you added damage, accuracy, recharge rate, etc it ought to be Momentum, I think.
There's design space for powers to use, generate, exhaust, and refill both Momentum and Reserves in various ways, which will be interesting and can cause different builds to work very differently, so I like that. Also, the Augments and Refinements we put in our powers might have effects on that too. Maybe that Proc you put in your attack gives added Dark damage, but at the cost of some Reserves when it goes off (giving the feeling that the dark forces you're manipulating are taking a toll on you as well as the target), maybe the Energy Damage Proc does damage that's defendant on your Momentum level when you use the power, etc.

As I understand it, if momentum builds up in a fight and that momentum fills your reserves as it bleeds off after the fight, then it makes sense that after a fight, you will have some reserves for the next fight.

They also did not say there was a shelf-life for reserves, but I expect they will have an unlimited shelf-life.

So, if they really do last forever you could still pop them before a fight like Inspirations, and you can still pop them during a fight as they fill up just like we could do with inspirations that dropped. Therefore I think they will still work the same way as inspirations did, except maybe you might not be able to keep stacks and stacks of them.

They did not say how many/much reserves we will be allowed to hoard. Will our reserves be a single unlimited well of potential, will it be stored in small bite-sized chinks, will it be stored in a form identical to inspirations, will it fill up one of each use type until all use types are full? We just don't know yet.

I would prefer that we can only hoard a limited amount of reserves before we're topped off and any further momentum we bleed is wasted.


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For now all we can really do

For now all we can really do is speculate. You could have any number of different effects that could be gotten from Reserves. As I said above, though, if you're using them before jumping into the fray, then you're not really treating them as a reserve of any kind, you're using them to give you a buff before you start to run low on anything, and as such they feel less like a "tapping into reserves" type thing and more of a "let me buff up and then toast this mob" type thing, which is fine, assuming the devs know they'll work that way and design powers and DPS levels with that in mind. If, on the other hand, they think of Reserves as things you'd only want to use in the middle-to-late part of the fight to get you over the hump, so to speak, and people end up using them more as a pre-buff, then that could lead to rules tweaks later on that would maybe cause players to get mad, possibly.

I remember the first year of CoX had Enhancement Diversification introduced as a thing and people freaked out about it. We should probably try to avoid that type of thing. And that was caused by devs not truly understanding the effects that the different Single Origin Enhancements had on powers and the way players actually behaved given that. The devs preached that players would want to optimize builds by having different types of SOs in our attacks, and I can only assume they did this because that was part of the initial design requirement they had when designing it, that they told the deigners to make it such that diverse was best. Unfortunately, they did the math wrong. It could be proven mathematically that having ONE Damage SO in a power was the same DPS effect as having a Recharge Rate SO and a Endo Cost SO, and those take up TWO slots to the Damage SO's one, ergo the all-damage strategy was the CORRECT one for many powers, well, virtually all attack powers.

If you call something "Reserves" that tells people, even designers, something about what they are and when they're likely to come into play. So I just caution that if they tend to get used pre-alpha strike more often than not then they're not living up to their name, really, and there needs to be care taken to remember that when hashing out the numbers, that's all.

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Reserves are used at the

Reserves are used at the discretrion ofnthe player, before, during, after combat - it is up to you.
Before combat can b viewes as calling out "maximum effort" and giving it "everything you've got". The term has more to do with the function of saving up and storing something for potential use and is not meant to dictate when it must be used.

There will be limits to how much can be used. Momentum will continue to return to zero even if Reserves are full.


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Another interesting issue

Another interesting issue that comes up is that of how much "Reserve" one uses when one activates a Reseve-based buff. Do you get a specific discrete amount of added damage for a specific amount of time for a specific amount of Reserves used such that every time you hit the F1 key you spend 10% of total Reserves to get +10% damage output for a few seconds? Or can I hold down the F1 key and then let go to gate the amount of Reserves used and therefore the amount of damage buff and/or the amount of time it lasts for?

If it's done in a continuous way, with the hold-down-the-button approach, it becomes a little harder to get the exact amount you want every time. If it's discrete, then that's easy.

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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Reserves are used at the discretrion ofnthe player, before, during, after combat - it is up to you.
Before combat can b viewes as calling out "maximum effort" and giving it "everything you've got". The term has more to do with the function of saving up and storing something for potential use and is not meant to dictate when it must be used.
There will be limits to how much can be used. Momentum will continue to return to zero even if Reserves are full.

If this is the approach, then I predict that the most popular use of Reserves would be to buff up one's damage before the fight starts so that any momentum bled-off afterwards doesn't go to waste, not to mention winning the fight faster due to the added damage or whatever you've then got. If people need to have some Reserves stored up in order to replace lost endurance, self-heal, break stun effects, or self-rez, they're likely not going to often have that, but then that's their call to do it that way. With Insps, you could have it both ways. Of course, you could put in caps to the amount of damage etc that a full Reserves bar can get you such that most of the Reserve bar cannot be used to get added damage, because it puts you at a hard cap when you burn the first few percent of the bar, etc.

I recommend making "Increased damage" the least efficient use of Reserves, by intentional design, for this reason. It's the first thing people will think of, and in most cases it ought to be a last resort against really tough badguys, not the first club out of the bag in all fights as a general rule. But that's just my opinion. You could even make it work such that it only really helps to use Reserves to increase damage against harder targets with greater resistance like higher level stuff and bosses and elites etc and that it's really not effective or efficient versus same-level targets, minions, pets, and lieutenants. But this is just me spit-balling ideas at this point. I find the Momentum-Reserves system really interesting.

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While this bears more

While this bears more rigorous testing, if a reserve is used to improve damage output in an effort to finish a fight faster which decreases the combat time and actions, building less momentum over time, in turn resulting in less reserves being filled. Then there are powers that may use Momentum, which means even less that may be left over to fill Reserves. The Reserves mechanic has been well thought out in advance and there is more to it than you're assumptions don't take into consideration.


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Tinker,I think, brought up on

Tinker,I think, brought up on another thread that it made him a little sad that the old CoH dynamic of helping others out by giving them insp--like giving newbs those big ones :D--won't be there in CoT.

Is that true? Will reserves be non-tradable?

If so, that does make sense based on what they represent, but it will be a little sad not to have that nice dynamic of helping others out even if you're not a support type. I know there will be other ways to help out, though, so, if so, all good.

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There are some aspects of

There are some aspects of Reserves which require some internal testing in order to have a full grasp of understanding for how they will playout. This includes one character expending their own Reserves in assistance to another character. While the simplest understanding of this is to return a fallen team member to combat, expeding reserves for other functions is not necessarily as straight forward. And there are some other things relaeted to Reserves which have further implications to "handing off" stuff. Our main concern of course is the ability to return a fallen team member to combat, which is what we'll be looking into working right. Usually, it was the main reason players traded inspirations was so someone could get what they needed to combine into a wakie for a self-rez - we want to retain that capability if nothing else.


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Cool, and that's easy to

Cool, and that's easy to grok as, say, something like going over and waking up an unconscious teammate and then helping them to their feet, since defeat isn't officially death. Or alternately as a power that heals or resurects if a player prefers to imagine it that way.

Thanks for the answer, Tannim!

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Going back to the argument

Going back to the argument that using reserves for added damage actually leaves you with shorter fights and thus less Momentum and thus fewer Reserves, the player, in that case, will be liable to simply up their difficulty so that their added damage is causing them to defeat tougher, more lucrative mobs at about the same speed as they'd cut through the on-level mobs they might fight without the Reserve-based damage buff. In that case, simply upping your difficulty and using Reserves for added damage allows you to have the added damage, get the same Momentum and Reserves numbers, and just fight tougher foes, theoretically getting better rewards over the same period of time as a result.

This of course assumes that fighting higher-difficulty-level foes causes one to get higher quality rewards, which may or may not be true.

It may also be true that different classes might want to use their reserves differently, based on other factors. A Blaster who has more-or-less hard-capped their damage output from things like Augments and so forth might want to use reserves for something else (like self-heals, self-destun, and self-rez) whereas a tanker might want to use them for damage and/or endo recovery, depending on which is more efficient use of the Reserves. Powers essentially convert Endurance to damage dealt, and we try to maximize the ratio of damage we get to endurance we spend, given a constant rate of endurance recovery over time. The ratio of damage you get per Reserves spent and the ratio of endo you get to Reserves spent might not be the same, if you design it that way, so you might be better off using Reserves for Endo or for Damage, based on the difference in those ratios.

You could also make the Reserves-to-Damage or Reserves-to-Heal, or Reserves-to-Endo ratios different for different classes, thus encouraging those classes to use reserves differently, or at least offering those classes more of what you expect them to need for their reserves and less of what they already have in spades. Plus you could have passive powers, toggles, or activated-for-a-duration powers that cause those Reserves-to-whatever ratios to change.

There's still a lot of potential for things to get out of whack, numbers wise, but also potential to fix that when it happens. Unfortunately those fixes are the stuff that make players mad when you take their favorite exploit away. You need to have some hardcore min-maxers play test stuff with an eye toward finding this stuff before it gets out of hand, I think. It does you no good to have people that are married to their own character being really powerful and tell you to keep it as broken as it is, you need people who will look for the overpowered stuff and be honest about it, which is hard to find. I remember hearing a story about CoX playtesting Hasten, and it originally had a bunch of advantages that made it OP, then they put in the "come down" debuffs into it and made it non-permanent, which caused the playtesters to be like "Hasten is unplayable now. They totally nerfed it to death. It's not worth taking." which was totally untrue, it was still decent, just not BAH-RO-KEN as it had been, but by comparison people felt like it was no fun anymore.

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In any event, I think it's

In any event, I think it's important that Reserves and Momentum don't supplant self-buff powers in most cases. If there are self-buff powers, they need to be BETTER than the Reserve-based alternative for anyone to want to consider taking them, and that has to be kept in mind in the design. Is it worthwhile for me to devote a power slot in my build to take Build Up as a power, or should I just burn some Reserves to get the same or better effects before hitting a mob? If the effects I get from using some Reserves is as good as the Build Up or Aim power (or both combined), then nobody takes those powers, I would bet, because they've been replaced by Reserves use, thus freeing up a power slot for something else. With Insps you had to keep a constant inventory of chicklets on you at all times to accompluish that, with this system you'll generally always have Reserves to burn for self-buff all the time, once you get rolling.

That said, certain powers are inherently not terribly popular and might want to be killed off in favor of Reserves filling their role, like the Rise of the Phoenix self-rez AoE. It was okay, but you had to get defeated to activate it, and a design that begins with "ok, first you allow yourself to die..." is never really attractive to anyone. Designing Reserves to fill that role rather than a power might be the more attractive approach there just because people hate powers they can't use whenever they want, require them to die, require them to take a debuff with the power as the cost of doing business, etc.

The fact that Reserves have a lot of versatility makes them useful, but you can't really make their effects all that strong as a result. Since you have so much flexibility in how you use them, you should make sure they're not overly effective in what they do when that decision is actually made. I'm not saying that all phases of Reserve use ought to be equal, there can be a "right answer" for how to use Reserves, but that answer ought to be different in different situations, and different for different classes at the very least. You don't want it to be an obvious choice "more damage, or a bunch of other options all of which are terrible" for all players at all times. Damage can be the right answer, sometimes, for some people. It shouldn't be the end-all-be-all for everyone all the time.

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Small idea:

Small idea:

Assuming that Reserves have a finite storage capacity and/or shelf-life, there could be a power or some other form of enhancement called "Inner Reserves" or somesuch that extends Reserves storage capacity/shelf-life.

Potentially cool for a "natural" or willpower based character.

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You could also have powers

You could also have powers that cause you to generate Momentum faster or lose it slower, etc, for leveraging that resource. You could also have powers or even whole classes that don't really rely on Momentum or Reserves to any great extent but do well regardless and just use that stuff as the icing on the cake.

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Like insps I think that

Like insps I think that reserves are always going to be used as "icing on the cake." Not necessarily and integral part of any given powerset. All players could still function at 100% with or without reserves. I also don't think Reserves should be a targetable bar by NPCs or otherwise you could come out of a fight with 7 dead team mates and no way to rez without picking another fight just to build up some momentum to turn into reserves. This completely defeats the give someone an wakie dynamic that existed in COH.

In the player defeat thread it was a given that a player that hosped would be able to purchase more insps to take back to the fight. With this reserves system that is now an impossibility. Furthermore only being able to channel reserves to another player for revival seems like a stark contrast to what COH allowed. If a team had suffered a near wipe and the remaining members could not disengage then those defeated players could feed those players insps to finish the fight. I once did this against the Countess.

Overall, my view on the momentum and reserves system has drastically turned to the negative having read this thread. Initially it seemed like a great concept but the flexibility compared to insps in COT is severely hampered. Hopefully the other things that momentum and reserves can be used for make up for that change (compared to COH) in functionality.

I do have one question that will not allay the above misgivings about the momentum and reserves. But what happens when a player reaches maximum momentum? Does added momentum go directly to reserves? A scrapper in COH could easily stand and fight for many minutes without taking a break. Does that player then have to stop every so often to trigger the momentum transfer to reserves? Or would the use of powers in prolonged combat naturally use enough momentum to prevent a player from building maximum momentum? If so, anyone engaged in scrapperlock could be in sore need of reserves very frequently.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

I don't believe they've given any concrete examples of a specific power and how it uses or interacts with Momentum or Reserves so far (correct me if I'm wrong).

I have given a few examples of Momentum. Keep in mind, Momentum is tied to a choice you make, your characters Mastery, as to what it will do directly (before bleeding off). The most direct example of Momentum at work is a damage buff derived from your momentum level. Think "Hulk mad! HULK SMASH!."

Do note, not all Masteries use Momentum, which means for those cases Momentum is purely for Reserve generation.

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Grimfox wrote:
Grimfox wrote:

I do have one question that will not allay the above misgivings about the momentum and reserves. But what happens when a player reaches maximum momentum? Does added momentum go directly to reserves? A scrapper in COH could easily stand and fight for many minutes without taking a break. Does that player then have to stop every so often to trigger the momentum transfer to reserves? Or would the use of powers in prolonged combat naturally use enough momentum to prevent a player from building maximum momentum? If so, anyone engaged in scrapperlock could be in sore need of reserves very frequently.

Maybe the devs can correct me if I am wrong, but my impression is that so long as you have momentum it will bleed off into reserves. Whether you are building your momentum or using your momentum, so long as some momentum exists in your momentum bank, you will be generating reserves.

So it would seem to me that if you reached maximum momentum and did not use a momentum-powered ability, then you are just wasting your momentum. It would be the equivalent of reaching maximum mana while under a mana recharge effect. Unless you use mana, all the remaining mana recharge would be wasted.


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I felt like I had heard the

I felt like I had heard the "Momentum gives you more damage" power somewhere, but couldn't remember exactly where, so thank you for that, Doc.

As for Reserves and the ability to rez, you COULD have some kind of powers (limited use temp powers or otherwise) that just straight up give you some reserves, or for that matter, some momentum, when activated. I mean, there are powers that heal you, powers that recover endo, etc, so why not?

Plus, the Insps were a thing that dropped at random during fights, so you sometimes were left without a wakie when you needed one, even in that system, and nobody to lend you one when soloing.

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

Grimfox wrote:
I do have one question that will not allay the above misgivings about the momentum and reserves. But what happens when a player reaches maximum momentum? Does added momentum go directly to reserves? A scrapper in COH could easily stand and fight for many minutes without taking a break. Does that player then have to stop every so often to trigger the momentum transfer to reserves? Or would the use of powers in prolonged combat naturally use enough momentum to prevent a player from building maximum momentum? If so, anyone engaged in scrapperlock could be in sore need of reserves very frequently.
Maybe the devs can correct me if I am wrong, but my impression is that so long as you have momentum it will bleed off into reserves. Whether you are building your momentum or using your momentum, so long as some momentum exists in your momentum bank, you will be generating reserves.
So it would seem to me that if you reached maximum momentum and did not use a momentum-powered ability, then you are just wasting your momentum. It would be the equivalent of reaching maximum mana while under a mana recharge effect. Unless you use mana, all the remaining mana recharge would be wasted.

Momentum is always attempting to return back to zero. Which means getting to and maintaining maximum momentum will require a lot of effort. As Doc said, the most basic use of Momentum is when it naturally decays it fills into Reserves. Some Masteries will use it, but not all. Some powersets will leverage it, some not. Some powersets may have a specific power that makes use of it in some manner even if the set as a whole doesn't require Momentum. As to what specifically happens when at max Momentum...(get's pounced by a rabid cabbit) [redacted].;)


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Okay that does answer that

Okay that does answer that question. I was under the impression that momentum only converted while the player was out of combat. Given that it is bleeding off constantly into reserves I imagine that the Juggernaut is the only person that could answer what happens at maximum momentum.

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And here I was thinking it

And here I was thinking it would be smart to make Momentum requirements for "Tier 9 Nuke" Powers. That way, it isn't just a matter of having the Power be recharged and enough Endurance, you also need to have enough Momentum in order to "invoke the Nuke" ...


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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

And here I was thinking it would be smart to make Momentum requirements for "Tier 9 Nuke" Powers. That way, it isn't just a matter of having the Power be recharged and enough Endurance, you also need to have enough Momentum in order to "invoke the Nuke" ...

That is possible...


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

And here I was thinking it would be smart to make Momentum requirements for "Tier 9 Nuke" Powers. That way, it isn't just a matter of having the Power be recharged and enough Endurance, you also need to have enough Momentum in order to "invoke the Nuke" ...

That is possible...

A full-Momentum Nuke would... have to actually End the fight. Right? None of this silly 'Really big BOOM!' and only the minions noticed.

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No! Do Not require momentum

No! Do Not require momentum for nuking. Half the fun of getting your nuke was wiping everyone out with a single power. If you have drop in and beat half the group up then nuke, you are taking away the power and functionality of the nuke. My favorite thing about getting Dreadful Wail on my Sonic/NRG blaster was dropping into a group from a rooftop and blasting them all away. I'd never be able to do that if I had to drop in shoot a couple Freaks to build momentum and then nuke. I'd die before I got 3 shots off. Whereas if I opened with the nuke I'd be left with a boss or LT with just a few points of health that I could pop blue and smash with Scream and Shout or Total Focus. (pink pom poms of DOOOM!)

Now if momentum is not a requirement but a force multiplier in a high difficulty setting I could see some benefit. But only in high difficulty. At regular difficulty a nuke would still have the power to wipe out a mob but in high difficulty +2 +3 etc the damage resist or mass of HP might be sufficiently high that a nuke would not be enough to wipe out a majority of the group, and that the team would not be able to make up the difference. Therefore a team could start a fight and allow the blaster to build momentum to finish off everything with a momentum boosted nuke. That said a momentum boosted nuke would have to be stronger than what a player could do if they used their reserves to boost their damage output. Otherwise they would just use reserves and open the fight with a much more powerful nuke. Basically relegating the momentum boosted nuke to a pinch move rather than something tactically useful.

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I don't think we can design

I don't think we can design the new game to function just like the old game, and even if we do, having one power that let's you just alpha-strike a mob in one click with no chance of having to deal with any backlash after is probably too good.

On the other hand, if you have to fight umpteen minions in order to get your Momentum up to the level at which your Nuke could actually Nuke stuff to oblivion, what will be there for you to deal Nuke damage to when it's ready to use? Haven't you defeated like ALL of the minions by then anyway? Besides that, in this scenario, only a Tanker could really do that, as most other toons would not have the survivability to stand in the middle of a huge mob of badguys and survive long enough to build momentum to that point. Do we want Tankers to have Tier 9 Nuke powers? If so, do we want that to be a mostly-Tankers-only strategy/style of play?

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

On the other hand, if you have to fight umpteen minions in order to get your Momentum up to the level at which your Nuke could actually Nuke stuff to oblivion, what will be there for you to deal Nuke damage to when it's ready to use?

Nuke occurs at 5:20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb8KZps4woA


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Well Radiac that was why

Well Radiac that was why nukes had a long recharge time and several other drawbacks. Sometimes they didn't kill everyone and you would be exhausted and unable to naturally recover End for a moment afterwards so a blaster had to accommodate for that. I'm not saying that a nuke should be without drawbacks but it shouldn't require me to attack that same group at the start to build momentum to be able to use it. A blaster just wouldn't be able to survive that.

Huckleberry, that was not a nuke. That was clearly a scrapper or brute, as evidenced by melee attacks and he took a lot of hits, they then used a PBAOE KB power like footstomp or TLD and ran for it. Which makes him kind of a wimpy scrapper of brute. :P

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Grimfox wrote:
Grimfox wrote:

Huckleberry, that was not a nuke. That was clearly a scrapper or brute, as evidenced by melee attacks and he took a lot of hits, they then used a PBAOE KB power like footstomp or TLD and ran for it. Which makes him kind of a wimpy scrapper of brute. :P

I believe we are discussing the 'concept' of a nuke, with the concept being the fact that it is a destructive superpower that is activated after reaching maximum momentum. Don't get caught up in the word 'nuke' and lose the bigger picture of the discussion.


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Don't lose sight of the

Don't lose sight of the little emoticon at the end of my statement that indicates it's clearly in jest. :P

Your definition is biased. A nuke is a highly destructive AOE power, typically PBAOE. In COH this was typically the most powerful single power a ranged damage powerset had available. Typically the tier 9 power.

We are discussing whether or not it should require a player to have maximum momentum in order to be activated. My stance is that it should not require maximum momentum or any momentum at all because it would massively limit the powers functionality and usefulness. It has already been stated that maximum momentum would be hard to achieve and that it would bleed off into reserves constantly. Limiting the nuke to only be used when in this small difficult to achieve window is, frankly, dumb. Furthermore what is happening when a player is building all that momentum? They are causing damage to bad guys, especially players that would have a nuke in their lineup, IE high damage output classes/power sets. Even if you assume that a player is spreading the damage so the nuke can be used equally on all enemies by the time they reach max momentum there may only be 10% of health across the board. I can think of more effective ways to fight than carefully spreading damage just so I can use a high powered AOE on all of those foes. And finally the longer they stand there fighting to build that momentum the more risk they incur of being defeated and all the momentum being built up is for naught. Well, I suppose once is transfers to reserves they will probably be able to use the reserves to rez themselves...hooray.

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For what it's worth, I seem

For what it's worth, I seem to remember min/maxers saying that the DPS actually decreases when you factor the classic Tier 9 blaster nukes into an attack chain. Also, I think if you are going to have such a powerful type of attack, it's probably better if it's awkward to use, not really repeatable, and not a thing you can just start and end a fight with at will. The nukes in CoX were not able to end a fight as soon as it started like that, they were generally only able to one-shot the minions and left you with the bosses aggroed on you to deal with, and you debuffed in some way.

So if we're talking about the "nuke" powers CoX had, then sure, you can have those without Momentum built, and they're probably not helping your DPS as much as you think they are, so they're like the slam dunk in basketball. They look flashy, but they're still only worth 2 points, like a lay-up or a regular jump-shot. It's the three-point shots you have to worry about.

I think if there is going to be anything that requires "full" momentum to be used (and I put "full" in quotes because I could see maybe allowing 98-99 percent to count as "close enough") then you might make those attacks as single-use temp powers that aren't clicked to activate, they just auto-trigger when your Momentum reaches the threshold and are thus spent and need to be replaced, like the Warburg Nukes, Jellomen, etc. Or maybe you can click them to "prime" them, then when your Momentum reaches the threshold during a set window of time, the power activates and nukes everything, but if you fail to get your Momentum to the threshold while you have the opportunity, the power just goes off at the end of the time window, doing less damage and not really "nuking" stuff, but just doing some AoE damage.

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I didn't intend to mislead in

I didn't intend to mislead in my orevious statement in reply to Redlynne's. That is specifically when it was mentioned that nukes could be triggered at maximum momentum. It is possible to do so in our current design system. I have not designed nukes as such, though they may leverage the use of momentum. I hope this alleviates concerns.


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I think I understood

I think I understood Tannim222's statement correctly the first time. Saying "X is possible, within the limits of the design we have. We can do X." is not the same as "We're totally doing X. Its going to happen." That said, it still sparks the imagination, and the discussion, of what can and would work well versus what's technically possible but maybe not advisable, or awkward, or just not going to happen because nobody wanted to actually do it.

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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

I didn't intend to mislead in my orevious statement in reply to Redlynne's. That is specifically when it was mentioned that nukes could be triggered at maximum momentum. It is possible to do so in our current design system. I have not designed nukes as such, though they may leverage the use of momentum. I hope this alleviates concerns.

I'd gather any momentum mechanic increasing damage, accuracy, or even mez would affect any power, therefore nukes too, anyway.


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Momentum. As to what specifically happens when at max Momentum...(get's pounced by a rabid cabbit) [redacted].;)

What really happens when you reach max momentum:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpUVPvsIF5w


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.