I have no problem with the sets being separate. I said an offensive Force Field set. Like a Blaster set with offensive powers based on the idea of Force Fields. Where is the problem?

The problem with that idea is that one character can now do everything. I agree that everyone should have a simple ST attack and an AoE but some things need to be left to specific ATs. Anyone should be able to draw aggro but only a Tank should be able to hold it in the thick of battle. Damage-dealers should have lots of ways to deal damage and so on. However I don't feel that a little bit of overlap is a bad thing.

Zombie Man wrote:

Our powers schema is tending toward being force-anonymous, meaning that if we were to take 'fire,' for example, most powers with graphical effects can take animations and GFX to make it look like fire... or ice... or water... or electricity... etc...
At least, we're seeing how well the engine can support that goal...
But, in the end, as a 'spiritual successor' to CoH, our default stance is to proliferate types of powers to all classes, just as CoH (mostly) did.
Bear in mind, on the CoH forums, I was one of the most vocal proponents of proliferation standing in the breach against Castle and Arcanaville getting Positron to decree proliferation over their objections. :D

Which I never understood why anyone wouldn't want proliferation!

Yes, when it came down to it, there were a lot of people who starting picking the AT based on which powersets they were using, and which AT that combo worked best with, but some of us still picked it based on the AT we thought fit the concept better.

I'm not a fan of changing the way the blast looks. I want burning to look like burning for everyone. I don't want to see Burning Blast in an icicle form. My vote is to keep the blast (particle) looking the same for everyone and not changable. The change in source of said blast im fine with along with the animation but the particle change i'm 100% against. Need some differentiation between other power sets.

Burning Blast with icicles teaming up with a Chill Blast with icicles i think will look confusing, silly, redundent. If you want icicles then choose freakin Chill Blast.

If this is not the case then we need a dev to clarify because I've been reading peoples posts this way.

AlienMafia wrote:

I'm not a fan of changing the way the blast looks. I want burning to look like burning for everyone. I don't want to see Burning Blast in an icicle form. My vote is to keep the blast (particle) looking the same for everyone and not changable. The change in source of said blast im fine with along with the animation but the particle change i'm 100% against. Need some differentiation between other power sets.
Burning Blast with icicles teaming up with a Chill Blast with icicles i think will look confusing, silly, redundent. If you want icicles then choose freakin Chill Blast.
If this is not the case then we need a dev to clarify because I've been reading peoples posts this way.

You're not alone but i disagree.

JayBezz wrote:

Radiac wrote:
One last note. I don't want a game where I can make all my blasts LOOK like red and yellow flames, but have them do, say, "Ice" type damage, when I look at the official damage report. A power that looks like fire should be "fire typed" in the official sense, for whatever that's worth. Being able to change the colors of the flames, make the flamses shoot out of a gun or my eyes or my chest or whatever is fine, and I like that the powers will have different areas of effect, cones, etc, but I don't wat there to be any "deeking" people with powers that look like one type but are officially something else.

Respectfully disagree.
If i shoot flames of psychic energy I dont want people telling me "Hey that shouldn't look like fire". Or if I stab someone with a pink colored katana I want it to do psychic damage i don't want people saying "hey! thats supposed to be cutting damage".
Create your character based on their THEME of what they're resistant to (and I'm betting every character will have some innate weaknesses to SOME type of energy).
Thats FX of the casting and the power.
Now I DO think there's room for the FX of the affected targets to have built in tells. If a target hit by psychic damage there could be pink dots that appear on the effected enemy. If a target is hit by fire damage (no matter what color/fx of the fire you shoot) the effected target could have orange flames appear on them.
If I want to shoot squirrels from the FX set then dammit let me shoot squirrels. IF I want to rain fire instead of rain water as an AoE then why not (Champions Online weather control character will be used to it).
Id go as far as to say that THEMATICALLY each character has a way of displaying their power that is unique.. Sunspot tells of when he first began to practice manifesting his power all he could manage were dots. Psylocke said the same thing but she always pictured butterflies..
If I want to shoot butterflies then I should be able to shoot butterflies without caring what the mechanics do coming out of my character.

JayBezz wrote:

Yeah.. and when mechanics are tied so closely to FX/theme you end up with mechanics you love with FX you hate and/or duplicates.
When Champions Online came out with their "Rock" passive that did the exact same thing as the "Force" passive it became clear to me that there should be a complete divorce of mechanics and frameworks.
I think it truth people don't care if their mechanics are exactly like the next person (as a PvPer I kind of prefer it TBH) but they DO want to be an individual. The animation is very important for concept and the FX are very important for concept. As long as my concept feels individual I'm okay with being mechanically similar to the man next to me.
There's always gear (I call the disciplines and hope the idea of training disciplines instead of picking up "gear" sticks), enhancements and other combat options (defense type, etc) besides the powers you have access to for concept.

I want to add that I also don't want to wait forever for the framework that fits my mechanics concept to come out (years after launch MAYBE) just to realize my concept and of ALL genres, superhero lore is the BEST place to customize the way your powers LOOK. There's just so much precedent in classice and modern comics for it.. Some temperature burns are from heat rays, some are from lazers, some are from fire, some are from kirby dots.. why should mine HAVE to look like flames?

Even if they look like "shards" of flame (Pete Wisdom) that someone else uses as "Ice" why limit everyone for the least popular tropes?

No judgement, but I see and share your desire for build parity.

Parity in mechanics is not the same as parity in customization. You'll find me advocating for removing the limits (but never the costs) from customization for this genre of game all over the boards. While you may not like my lightning poison attack.. it may be just the look someone else was needing for their character. I know what I want for my personal character, and I don't expect that you'll want the same thing. So that's why I want everyone to have a free range of options and have the rules be clearly defined to the users.

AlienMafia wrote:

Lightning Blast that poisons an enemy. I don't like it.

I don't disagree, except that 'poison' is basically a DoT or Debuff... So I could see the electrical power using a 'poisoning' mechanic for that effect. Residual charge, or neural disruption, they could be 'poisons'.

Burning 'Ice', or freezing 'Fire'... I can see how that might work, but they essentially become 'not the original basic element', when that happens. So, the 'magical green fire' is not actually 'fire', but a manifestation of 'poison'? That could make sense in a story context.

I guess I'm arguing that we shouldn't limit the options for creativity, just because they don't make strictly logical sense.

Be Well!
Fireheart

We could have multiple variations of a fire blast with a dedicated default only available to fire set.

I don't want to limit creativity either but i feel there needs to be some continuity in the particle blast itself.

Just adding onto my opinion.

[img=400x300]http://www.kultur-bad-vilbel.de/media/Open%20Air%20Kino/Traumschiff3.jpg[/img]

Okay, it's merely a Star Trek spoof, but these guys have probably had phasers set to fabulous.

AlienMafia wrote:

[b]I just don't want[/b] the same look ice gets coming out of a fire type character. If ice gets a icicle that has a distinct snow particle in its wake then [b]i have prob[/b] with fire getting an icicle too but please leave the snow "ice look" off of that option. [b]I want some[/b] distinct differences between at least the default look from other sets.

What you're trying to do is [i]police the aesthetics[/i] of the game so as to suit YOUR personal sensibilities.

AlienMafia wrote:

I just don't want
i have prob
I want some

Look, in any system where you're given a sufficiently large matrix of possibilities, only a subset of the available combinations will look "cool" or appropriate or whatever. City of Heroes allowed for something on the order of 10[sup]28[/sup] costume combinations, but I can easily assure you that only a tiny minority of those combinations wouldn't look like Fashion Disasters.

It's up to the developers to give us the tools to make awesome stuff ... but it's up to US to have the good sense to not create Fashion Disasters by having good taste and decent aesthetic senses for what WE are doing with all the toys we get to play with. I would expect a faithful worshipper of "THE CLAW" to recognize that simple truth.

AlienMafia wrote:

It was fun meeting Arbiter Fabulous in person back in 2012. Lol the whole event in Palo Alto was a blast.

Still remember the time when Arbiter Fabulous went up to the microphone for the first time, dressed *FABULOUSLY* in pinks and rainbows while towering over everyone (because he's a tall guy) ... and introduced himself (with a straight face) as "GoldenGirlCOH."

The roar of laughter for that one was priceless! *^_^*

Yeah! I mean, everyone sees that the Flash "only" has super speed and he's one of the most powerful superheroes in the DCU.

I think Redlynne did a good job putting this debate into context with the reference to the character creator. As she said, to give us the tools to make a host of awesome concepts, they pretty much must create the possibility of players doing something bloody stupid. Just like the seemingly infinite possibilities of the character creator's numerous pieces empowered players to make bad combinations just as much as good ones, the kind of power system CoT aims to give us will allow an entire new world of amazing concepts...and an entire new world of ridiculous combos. It might even be considered proof they did it right.

Bios were great when the writer was good. But how many winceworthy ones have we all read? I think she put Alien's opinions a little harshly by calling it policing, but her point remains, in my opinion, the one most to the point. Yes, people will be able to do some weird and lousy stuff with this. It's a natural consequence of the creative freedom they offer.

Ankhammon wrote:

Zombie Man wrote:
Our powers schema is tending toward being force-anonymous, meaning that if we were to take 'fire,' for example, most powers with graphical effects can take animations and GFX to make it look like fire... or ice... or water... or electricity... etc...
At least, we're seeing how well the engine can support that goal...
But, in the end, as a 'spiritual successor' to CoH, our default stance is to proliferate types of powers to all classes, just as CoH (mostly) did.
Bear in mind, on the CoH forums, I was one of the most vocal proponents of proliferation standing in the breach against Castle and Arcanaville getting Positron to decree proliferation over their objections. :D

For the most part, I agree with your stances. I did, however, really like the fact that CoH had one un-proliferated set for each Class that allowed a completely unique char in those Classes.
For instance, the Ice Melee set that tanks alone had. It was said to be underpowered and generally bashed by the forums, but I loved my Dark/Ice tank. He was completely unique and had an incredible ability to tank in almost any situation I put in him.
Full disclosure: I never finished him so I don't know how he would have held up in late game.
The only other point is to make sure that each AT feels different and valuable when you are proliferating these sets. CoH did an good job of this, but I think they didn't really go far enough in some of that as they could.
With the damage levels as high as they were in CoH most groups could do better with a Controller than a Defender simply because they could give enough of a heal and de-buff that could keep any reasonable group going.
I spent more time with defenders than almost anyone else I knew in the game (or forums) and was able to put together some very odd but awesome combinations. Like a Nature/DP Defender who could stand toe to toe with AVs for as long as Break Frees were there (I loved my fight with Manticore that lasted over an hour). The sad part is my value in a group wasn't as high as it could have been simply because the need against even the worst AVs was not enough to warrant an actual need with the way players could put together their chars.
A simple way to change all of that is to create more AV challenges and make it so Defender types actually provided more de-buff/buff/heal than any other set. In CoH the resistances of the AVs was set in stone and was so large the percent difference between Defender/Corrupter/Controller was all but negligible.

And I found that to be the stupidest thing. There was no reason Ice Melee was a Tanker only concept.

Superman is a tanker. Supergirl is a scrapper.

Also, hopefully we can see a difference in powersets we didn't see in CoH. Superman/Supergirl/Power Girl they're invunverable!

Wonder Woman, up there with the super strength, but she's just not invulnerable, she can take those punches, but she can't take those bullet holes! She'd be more akin to being super durable! Just as much invunerablity to those punches, but she had to go outside the powerset to get some Lethal resist!