You choose the ability and then you choose the animation, yes. Obviously the choices won't be 100% unlimited, but when you pick a melee attack, it's entirely up to you whether it's a punch, kick, smash, weapon, or whatever else we can cram in there... A whole slew of options.

I mean Skyrim has dual shields :p

KindofaLegend wrote:

So one thing I saw promised was that powers would be customizable, as in if you wanted to use the power set fire and you chose the power Fireball

Another thing to wrap your head around is that there are no damage types. So there will be no 'fire' set. In theory, you can pick a ranged power, select an emanation point (and or a prop), then make it look like whatever you want. Then you could tweak the power to have a damage over time effect (burning fire or whatever you desire).

Losername wrote:

Tannim222 wrote:

Planet10 wrote:

KindofaLegend wrote:

So one thing I saw promised was that powers would be customizable, as in if you wanted to use the power set fire and you chose the power Fireball

Another thing to wrap your head around is that there are no damage types. So there will be no 'fire' set. In theory, you can pick a ranged power, select an emanation point (and or a prop), then make it look like whatever you want. Then you could tweak the power to have a damage over time effect (burning fire or whatever you desire).

We hve 3 damage types: Physical, Energy, and Exotic.

You don’t tweak the mechanics of powers unless you end up with special Set Boosters, Augments, Refinements, or unique Set Bonuses (which aren’t in at launch).

You choose a Power Set that fits the play style you like using a mechanic that seems to fit your concept. If you wanted a fire that did damage over time you would look for a set that used a lot of DoT effects in the powers and aesthetically customize them accordingly.

Just curious, what is exotic damage? Could you give an example?

DesViper wrote:

Tannim had given a defense debuff as an example before. But maybe another illustration would help ;)

Currently Phychic sets, Vampiric sets, and Illusion Control have exotic damage. Thematically I guess exotic is just stuff that doesn't fit into Physical or Energy: mind attacks, void damage, darkness, maybe poison.

Des is correct. Ultimately, Exotic is just a third damage type. When you boil down what damage types are, they function as channels of damage to distinguish from each other which can be used to create a variety in gameplay.
Really, a developer could call them anything that fits their game theme. A candy-themed game could have Jolly Rancher, Taffy, and Bubblegum damage types.

For those interested in how we arrived at our 3, here is a brief history:

We initially had looked at the old game's 8 damage types and messed around with variations of 5 different types. We eventually discarded looking backward and created an extensive list of possible damage types. I don't quite recall the exact number, but 21 seems awfully familiar. We even went in the opposite direction and had no types at all and just had damage with no "type", and mitigations vs. different kinds of effects. The decision was made to work with our extensive list. We culled it down a bit, paring similar types into one and ended up somewhere in the range of 9-11 types. As we iterated on mechanics, we would revisit these types and had created a system that dealt with meta-damage-types which governed sub-damage types. The 9-11 ended up as the sub-damage types with our current 3 being the meta-damage types. Iteration continued and we realized that while the system was interesting it was also somewhat convoluted. It would result in complexity for both the player and us as a small team of devs. We had to create a system where if we maintained our current dev-team for gameplay (which actually shrunk over time), we would be able to manage it well for the health of the game. By the way, all powers have a damage type assigned to them. Healing, for example, is typed Exotic. A regeneration debuff would be typed Exotic, and if you had Exotic Resistance, it would reduce the debuff value.

The result was to cut the sub-damage types, keeping with 3 main damage types. This bled into lots of other areas of design. Evasion has 3 types vs styles of attacks: melee, ranged, and AoE. Defense has 3 types vs the same styles, but there are also 3 Defense Effects: Damage Defense, Control Defense, and Debuff Defense. There are 3 main categories of damage mitigation; Avoid being hit (evasion), Reduce when hit (defense, subtraction, resistance - another 3), and Recover when hit (healing and regeneration - which is just healing over time). Our Augments go from 0 to 3 Sockets for Refinements. There are 3 types of main improvement Sockets: Augment Sockets, Set Sockets, Refinement Sockets. 3 main types of improvements: Augments, Boosters (which has a sub-category of global boosters), and Refinements.

As an aside, we haven't completely done away with the damage sub-types. They actually still exist in our Power Designer that we use to make all the powers. They currently serve no function and won't be seen in the game in any way. We have shelved them to explore as possible use further in the future. If we never get to it, well, it is just a minor step us developers have to go through when making a power. We have ideas on how to use them that avoid complicating the combat mechanics of damage vs damage mitigation keeping the 3 main types as damage.

Art Deco combat mechanics :p

Thanks for the cool glimpse behind the curtain, Tannim!

Tannim222 wrote:

Healing, for example, is typed Exotic. A regeneration debuff would be typed Exotic, and if you had Exotic Resistance, it would reduce the debuff value.

Just to be sure, this doesn't mean a char with Exotic Resistance would be harder for a teammate to heal, does it?

Cinnder wrote:

Thanks for the cool glimpse behind the curtain, Tannim!

Tannim222 wrote:

Healing, for example, is typed Exotic. A regeneration debuff would be typed Exotic, and if you had Exotic Resistance, it would reduce the debuff value.

Just to be sure, this doesn't mean a char with Exotic Resistance would be harder for a teammate to heal, does it?

No we wouldn’t do that. Resistance reduces harmful effects by type.

Vlad makes good points :p

Whoa, Steven Brust fans?! HOW AM I JUST FINDING OUT ABOUT THIS NOW?!