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Controllers versus Masterminds

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Radiac
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Controllers versus Masterminds

In CoX, both the Controller and the Mastermind got pets, and I think they both got a defender secondary set. The controller generally got some kind of single target and/or group hold suppression power (immob, slow, repeated knockdown, etc) and had to wait for level 38 to get a pet, which sometimes wasn't really that good (looking at you, Singularity). The Mastermind just got the best pets, and pet upgrades, and a few attacks of their own so they could pretend like they were fighting too (tongue in cheek).

To differentiate the two classes better this time, I think controllers maybe shouldn't get pets. Or if they do, they should get the non-AI kind that just follow you around or are immobile once placed (like the devices Turret, etc), maybe even make them untargettable and somewhat less effective, more rudimentary.

This brings up the problem of what should the controller's "Awesome level 38 power" be, if there is in fact a need for something analogous to that in CoT. well, since the fire imps and whatnot were really just the controllers damage source, you COULD just give them some kind of attack power. It could be a DoT toggle that does like really good damage and had a hold effect that stacks with the other hold powers, it could be an untargetted ranged AoE that you drop like Rain of Fire that does hold + damage, or hold + damage + debuff, etc.

As for the Masterminds, I think their biggest issue in CoX was that they could plow through a mission map at high difficulty/team size settings faster than most other ATs and maybe need to be toned down a little, at least on the higher level end. Low end they weren't really setting the world on fire, and could maybe have used a little help actually.

I would also like to see a range of different petsummon sets that play differently. Some with more pets, opthers with less pets, some with tougher, more resistant pets, others with dodgier more defensive pets, others with pets that are more geared toward offense. If it's like CoX where the primary set is the one that gives you pet summoning powers and the secondary set is the one you take to heal and buff them (or debuff the mobs they're fighting) then I'd like to see a range of different play styles, like some Masterminds are constantly resummoning their fragile pets while others can rely on their tougher pets to last a lot longer. Sets that have more pets should want less single-target pet buffs to have to apply and more ranged AoE or PBAoE pet buffs. Some masterminds who end up using debuffs on the mobs would need to remain visible because attacking does that (maybe) but others might be able to go ultra-stealthy to survive.

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I'll be hones with you, I

When you said MasterMind and Controller, i automatically thought of ONI, from Ninjas.

I'll be honest, I didnt liked the Ninjas ONI pet. It didnt feel like it fit what I hoped for with the already Scrappery type of Pets. If anything, Oni should have just Buffed the heck out of the Other pets i had out, Not try and play a Poor mans version of a Controller. :/

I was starting to enjoy my Ninjas MM allot 'till i saw ONI and i just couldnt see it getting even close to what a Thugs MasterMind could do. So I just dropped it... but man.. it was fun watching them use their Martial Arts attacks to put the hurt on others... just not when a Leut or Boss returned the favor in 2 to 3 hits back. :P Dead Pet! its like the Devs geared Ninjas for Solo Players, cause thats the only way your pats would survive. cause ONI wouldnt HOLD Every enemy, and if ONI didnt HOLD a few of them... and you were fighting in a large group.. Bye Bye Ninjas. >:(

I really dont want to spend the Whole fight reCasting Pets. Awful! Ninjas took damage worse than my defender. Its like their defense was the same like a Regen Scrapper, but without the Regen part. Just Awful! :/ To make it a fair fight, instead of Fistfull of Arrows, it should have been a Hold, or KB/KD power. So I could have at least helped with the Mitigation, if my secondary dint have any.

Thats why I only leveled up a Thugs MM (see build i used: Mids BUILD ). And all i ever used was Enforcers and Bruiser, no other pets were needed.. or wanted. And no one ever complained about my 3 pets getting in their way. They didnt go down as fast either. :)

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I can see there being a niche

I can see there being a niche for the "cannon fodder " pets set. I wouldn't want Ninjas to be it though. Aesthetically I think the set that has you constantly summoning more pets should be giving you pets that aren't supposed to be highly trained human assassins. I would like to see robots or undead (zombies and or skeletons) or giant insects or something in that role. Nobody cares how many robots you had to throw at the problem, we just make more out of the scrap that's left over anyway (Please Recycle!). So the Ninjas, Mercenaries, Thugs etc sets should not be the "you're constantly having to make more" pet set. Also if this "meat grinder" set does exist, you'd want a defender set to buff them with that is mostly toggled PBAoE mastermind-centered buff auras like the big umbrella force field in the FF set, not like the individually applied force fields you had to apply to each guy one at a time. That or Ranged ally AoE click powers where you target one pet and then the buff hits all nearby pets too (like Speed Boost after they fixed it).

A mastermind that has a small number of comparatively durable pets, on the other hand, can afford to spend time applying individual buffs on them, but they need to be pretty good, because if the pets get killed, he's running out the mission door and resummoning them in a safe place so he can bring them out, apply upgrades, etc which takes him longer than the "cannon fodder pets" style guy.

That's how I imagine it. anyway. Like every Halloween costume I ever made for myself, it probably won't come out anything like my imagination in reality.

Edit: That brings up another idea, maybe the recharge time of each pet summon power should be proportional to the durability of the pets. That way the set encourages the player to keep his pets alive long enough that they can be resummoned again by the time they die.

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I'm really puzzled that

I'm really puzzled that anyone thinks there's a need to suggest this. Aside from perhaps Illusion, I don't find that there is much overlap between mastermind and controller playstyles. Controller pets were, with few exceptions, set and forget; and it was easy to forget to resummon them, particularly some of the less sturdy or less damaging pets like Gremlins or the Fly Trap. In many cases, they were even detrimental to a controller's role (Fire Imps and Gremlins infamously garnering unwanted aggro, Fly Trap casting roots on a spread out mob, or Phantasm knocking back mobs). Sure, they were pets but they rarely shifted focus off of control (and even called for more control at times due to their unruly behavior). To me, it was a vastly different game experience than managing a mastermind's pets. It's akin to suggesting we need stronger differentiation between defenders and masterminds because they shared secondaries and a few blasts.

Putting that aside, I do think it's worth asking what makes a good pet. Which pets were worthwhile and what made them that way? Which pets were problematic and why? How much control should the player have over commandable pets?

Also, a specific question for you Radiac: do you think it's possible to balance the recharge against the survivability of pets while secondary powers may greatly alter that survivability?

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mrketch wrote:
mrketch wrote:

I'm really puzzled that anyone thinks there's a need to suggest this. Aside from perhaps Illusion, I don't find that there is much overlap between mastermind and controller playstyles. Controller pets were, with few exceptions, set and forget; and it was easy to forget to resummon them, particularly some of the less sturdy or less damaging pets like Gremlins or the Fly Trap. In many cases, they were even detrimental to a controller's role (Fire Imps and Gremlins infamously garnering unwanted aggro, Fly Trap casting roots on a spread out mob, or Phantasm knocking back mobs). Sure, they were pets but they rarely shifted focus off of control (and even called for more control at times due to their unruly behavior). To me, it was a vastly different game experience than managing a mastermind's pets. It's akin to suggesting we need stronger differentiation between defenders and masterminds because they shared secondaries and a few blasts.
Putting that aside, I do think it's worth asking what makes a good pet. Which pets were worthwhile and what made them that way? Which pets were problematic and why? How much control should the player have over commandable pets?
Also, a specific question for you Radiac: do you think it's possible to balance the recharge against the survivability of pets while secondary powers may greatly alter that survivability?

I'm terrible at working with the hypertext tags, so I'm sorry I didn't break up your quote into pieces. Also, HUGE wall of text, it's getting late, sorry about that too..

Okay, first, I don't mean to suggest that people didn't understand the difference between a Controller and a Mastermind (at least not circa 2011 anyway), nor am I implying that they couldn't recognize what somebody was really easily. Controllers generally got the "long recharge" pets that didn't have the "set an attitude" control panel, and the Masterminds had the instantly-recharging "you can haz pets, all the time" kind that came with the control panel. However, the pet summon powers employed by the controllers were similar in look but strictly different in mechanics than the mastermind ones. There were enhancements that worked on the one kind but not the other and visa versa. The Demons set actually had one power that summoned little underling sized imps, and it was a weird thing because it was a Controller-style pet summon power (with a long recharge) in a Mastermind set. The human form Peace Bringer had a pet summon that was basically a Controller-style pet that summoned one ot more flying-suicide-smartbombs. All I'm saying is that that this would, I expect, be unnecessary in a game where pets are recognized as being as awesome as they were from the start, unlike CoH where they made controllers, realized how popular pets were as a power, then rolld out masterminds later in CoV. I would expect that all pets will work largely the same as all other pets in CoT because they know to plan ahead for it. I mean in the early days of coH, you could have like 9 Fire Imps out at a time if you got the recharge rate for it up high enough, and those were the days (before City of Villains came out and the masterminds even existed) when the Fire Imp Controller was THE pet-based damage set. They later limited the number of them you could have out at a time (to three I think) to make the fire controllers less overpowered (and less mastermind-like, if you ask me, even though this was before masterminds even existed in the game), and that was when controller pets got "bad" by and large. In any event, one lousy pet summon power doesn't feel terribly epic to have as a "level 38 WOW-factor" power, so as such I was thinking it would make controllers feel more Controller-iffic if they got something else. Because having what feels like some other AT's sub-par rejects as YOUR supposed top of the heap, last power on the list, "but oh boy is it a doozy" just feels wrong to me.

And now for the "recharge versus survivability" question. Assuming there are buffs available to the mastermind himself that can increase a pet's survivability while soloing (one assumes in the secondary set) I would think that the pet's inherent survivability (hit points, resistances, defense, stealth, mez resistance, upgrade powers the primary set offers and will likely be used, etc etc) would set a baseline which the buffs will only increase from there. In other words, a pet that is more inherently survivable will still outlive one that is less inherently survivable, assuming they both get similar buffs. All you have to do is let people in the beta testing stages playtest the various primary pets with the various secondary buffs and tweak the recharge rates until they feel about right.

I just thought it might be fun to have different Mastermind play styles such that one set is making you repeatedly resummon pets a lot of the time, and thus needs pet buff powers that are large area passive or toggle powers that are centered on you, etc which force you to resummon pets and to get close tot he action (and therefore make you want more stealth) whereas the other pet set gives you pets that are essentially "summon once and use for the whole map" such that it allows you to actively use more powers like debuffs or attacks or individual pet buffs, etc during fights, and to stand away farther if you want to and just let the pets tank for you.

That said I could be proven completely wrong about the whole idea in the first place. Maybe NO pet set will ever be squishy enough that the recharge time makes a difference. Ninjas were, from what I hear, pretty darn squishy, but who knows what this game will have. They might not even have pet based primary sets at all.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

I'm terrible at working with the hypertext tags, so I'm sorry I didn't break up your quote into pieces. Also, HUGE wall of text, it's getting late, sorry about that too..
Okay, first, I don't mean to suggest that people didn't understand the difference between a Controller and a Mastermind (at least not circa 2011 anyway), nor am I implying that they couldn't recognize what somebody was really easily. Controllers generally got the "long recharge" pets that didn't have the "set an attitude" control panel, and the Masterminds had the instantly-recharging "you can haz pets, all the time" kind that came with the control panel. However, the pet summon powers employed by the controllers were similar in look but strictly different in mechanics than the mastermind ones. There were enhancements that worked on the one kind but not the other and visa versa. The Demons set actually had one power that summoned little underling sized imps, and it was a weird thing because it was a Controller-style pet summon power (with a long recharge) in a Mastermind set. The human form Peace Bringer had a pet summon that was basically a Controller-style pet that summoned one ot more flying-suicide-smartbombs. All I'm saying is that that this would, I expect, be unnecessary in a game where pets are recognized as being as awesome as they were from the start, unlike CoH where they made controllers, realized how popular pets were as a power, then rolld out masterminds later in CoV. I would expect that all pets will work largely the same as all other pets in CoT because they know to plan ahead for it. I mean in the early days of coH, you could have like 9 Fire Imps out at a time if you got the recharge rate for it up high enough, and those were the days (before City of Villains came out and the masterminds even existed) when the Fire Imp Controller was THE pet-based damage set. They later limited the number of them you could have out at a time (to three I think) to make the fire controllers less overpowered (and less mastermind-like, if you ask me, even though this was before masterminds even existed in the game), and that was when controller pets got "bad" by and large. In any event, one lousy pet summon power doesn't feel terribly epic to have as a "level 38 WOW-factor" power, so as such I was thinking it would make controllers feel more Controller-iffic if they got something else. Because having what feels like some other AT's sub-par rejects as YOUR supposed top of the heap, last power on the list, "but oh boy is it a doozy" just feels wrong to me.
And now for the "recharge versus survivability" question. Assuming there are buffs available to the mastermind himself that can increase a pet's survivability while soloing (one assumes in the secondary set) I would think that the pet's inherent survivability (hit points, resistances, defense, stealth, mez resistance, upgrade powers the primary set offers and will likely be used, etc etc) would set a baseline which the buffs will only increase from there. In other words, a pet that is more inherently survivable will still outlive one that is less inherently survivable, assuming they both get similar buffs. All you have to do is let people in the beta testing stages playtest the various primary pets with the various secondary buffs and tweak the recharge rates until they feel about right.

Okay, I think I'm on the same page now and I'll have to agree. I was thinking something similar, but omitted it in my previous post, about pets feeling almost tangential to the control role. For instance, I was never particularly excited by the prospect of Fly Trap for a few reasons. Thematically, it always felt more like a separate entity and less of an extension of my character's powers. Carrion Creepers, on the other hand, felt like more of a "power" and less of its own creature. ( Mechanically, Fly Trap didn't fill any holes in Plant control which already had strong control and damage.) Peacebringers and Warshades also provide a good example of pets that felt like manifestations of their powers rather than entities in their own right.

I'd be in favor of a more manifestation like powers for other ATs, while powers that summon a more permanent entity would be reserved for the mastermind-like AT. I could see manifestation powers scattered through control sets (e.g. Haunt, Spectral Terror, Carrion Creepers) with something more inline with the ATs primary function occupying the final power selection.

Quote:

I just thought it might be fun to have different Mastermind play styles such that one set is making you repeatedly resummon pets a lot of the time, and thus needs pet buff powers that are large area passive or toggle powers that are centered on you, etc which force you to resummon pets and to get close tot he action (and therefore make you want more stealth) whereas the other pet set gives you pets that are essentially "summon once and use for the whole map" such that it allows you to actively use more powers like debuffs or attacks or individual pet buffs, etc during fights, and to stand away farther if you want to and just let the pets tank for you.
That said I could be proven completely wrong about the whole idea in the first place. Maybe NO pet set will ever be squishy enough that the recharge time makes a difference. Ninjas were, from what I hear, pretty darn squishy, but who knows what this game will have. They might not even have pet based primary sets at all.

The problem I'm imagining with low recharge, low survivability pets is that they'll suffer when paired with a secondary that employs longer recharges. For example, quickly resummoning pets wasn't a major issue for a mastermind using Forcefields, but a minion missing out on Farsight from the Time Manipulation set was put at a disadvantage. Most secondaries for Masterminds avoid this issue, but it is one to be aware of.

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What was wrong with Singy? I

What was wrong with Singy? I loved my Singy.

Spurn all ye kindle.

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Not all combinations of

Not all combinations of primary and secondary will be good. The existence of things the have poor synergy (or operate against each other even) is not a game-breaking problem where it exists, because people will tend to avoid those comboes or learn to live with the awkwardness of the build somehow. The problem is when something is TOO good and needs to be toned down to avoid overpoweredness.

I'm not saying the Singularity was "bad", because it did add some more mez-power to the gravity troller's arsenal, but what I think we really wanted was more damage, which they eventually sort of fixed in like year 8 when they added more damage to Propel etc. That and the ultimate fixing of the "HamiO loopholes" felt like the last nail in the coffin for CoX at the end. It was as if one day they finally did that they were like "Ok, we've finally got it working correctly now...... shut it down."

To make a comparison, getting the Singularity as a level 38 power in a controller set, at the time, felt a lot like this (to me):
You wake up and have some leftover roast beef for breakfast and your friend calls you to tell you they're taking you out to dinner that night. The place is really nice and they're famous for their dessert, so save room for that. You have a busy day, and you grab a sandwich for lunch, and that ends up being a roast beef sandwich. You get to the restaurant and find out that it's a steak restaurant renown for their selection of beef entres, so you order a steak for dinner, and it's delicious too. Then they bring out the famous desert, the thing you've been waiting all day for, and it's a combo platter consisting of leftover roast beef, half a roast beef sandwich, and a small steak, and you're like "WTF--Seriously?"

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Controllers received a pet

Controllers received a pet largely because by lvl 38 they were often able to draw more aggro than they could handle. The pet was designed to help with damage output (which some sets needed but others didn't) and aggro (again, some sets needed help more than others).

MMs were the same way. Some sets coupled with some pets made for stupid easy unless you were facing lots of AoE (the bane of MMs). Ninjas, however, were virtually unplayable they were so weak by comparison.

If CoT controls are such that Controllers don't need a pet I can see dropping them. Better yet, drop them from the sets that don't need them and give them to sets that do. Nothing says that every set needs a pet at lvl 38 or whatever.

As for MMs, their effectiveness will be based on the level of control we have and their AI more than anything else. The most crazily OP pet set will fail if the pet's default setting is to run into fire patches and Brawl. If we get good AI and good controls we may have to tone the down a bit though

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Comicsluvr wrote:
Comicsluvr wrote:

The most crazily OP pet set will fail if the pet's default setting is to run into fire patches and Brawl.

I see that you've played a robots mastermind. >.>

One factor that can make a huge difference with pets is the extent to which the player can control their behavior. Controller pets were fire and forget, which can apply as much to Singularity or a summoned wall as it can to the fire imps. I feel that any pet from what amounts to a primary set for controllers should also focus on control in some fashion.

As a mastermind I would have loved it if I had had some influence over when and which attacks my pets had used. Something as simple as 'fire everything you have' would have been fantastic (especially as a robots MM) to have a reliable alpha strike of my own. A setting for 'stay at range even if Asimov himself comes down and tells you to move in' would likewise have been huge, as well 'favor melee/ranged' options. A simple 'move to melee' and 'move to range' option wouldn't have gone amiss, either. Especially if the pet AI had been smart enough to prioritize moving toward the mastermind.

I by no means want to suggest that we should need to have a separate controller at the ready just to manage pets, but I do think that some of those options would have gone a long way to hobbling some of the stupid that pets could get up to.

Oh, and could we have pets teleport to their owner if they happen to get out of range? Please and thank you.

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Didn't most people agree that

Didn't most people agree that Robots/FF was like the most powerful build in the game, as far as clearing a PVE map ASAP was concerned? I mean, I had a Demon/Fire (or /Thermal, or whatever it was called) MM with maybe 1 or 2 purple IOs, and no HamiOs, and I wasn't even really a powergamer, I was pretty laid back, but even I, with that toon, could clear a map readily set on +2/x8. I used to solo the 5 daily Hero Alignment missions (and the 6th one when I got it) with this toon by day just for rack up Hero Merits and other swag. Got me a purple a month on average. I never saw that kind of production from my defenders. Admittedly, the ones against Arachnos had me wanting to tone down the difficulty sometimes.

On a side note, I always wanted to get the Doc Quantum mission. I just loved defeating him, he was such a tool..... good times.... *sigh*

Edit: One time on one of those missions, I got defeated by Flambeau. I stopped paying attention when my phone rang and she "like totally ambushed" me. Oh, the embarrassment....

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

The controller generally got some kind of single target and/or group hold suppression power (immob, slow, repeated knockdown, etc) and had to wait for level 38 to get a pet, which sometimes wasn't really that good (looking at you, Singularity).

I would like to point out that the Golem from Earth Control has earned the fan nicname of "Poo." I'll leave the reasons for that up in the air for you.

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This is starting to sound

This is starting to sound like a Johnny Carson joke now "My Controller''s lvl 38 pet was SO bad...." (insert your punchline below)

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

This is starting to sound like a Johnny Carson joke now "My Controller''s lvl 38 pet was SO bad...." (insert your punchline below)

...when I set him to "Defensive" he replied "What'd I do!?!?"

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There's one thing driving me

There's one thing driving me nuts in this thread... controllers and doms got their pets at 32. Level 38 is when you got the last power in your secondary.

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mrketch wrote:
mrketch wrote:

There's one thing driving me nuts in this thread... controllers and doms got their pets at 32. Level 38 is when you got the last power in your secondary.

My apologies. I'm sad to say I haven't respecced my controller in over 2 years.

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I played every flavor and

I played every flavor and combination of MM to at least lvl 35. Yes, Bot/FF was the easiest...also the most boring. My friend's Bot/FF would to the /Readpaper emote in the middle of battle. Now my Necro/Dark was even more powerful but he kept me BUSY. Either I was healing the pets, debuffing the enemy or controlling something. Never a dull moment on that one. As before, some control changes (Never close to melee, Always close to melee, stay right the hell where I told you to stay wait why are you running over there?) would have made things MUCH better. Any smarter controls than that and we really would have been OP I think.

I'm saddened we didn't get MMs at launch from the Kickstarter but I'm hopeful...

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Loved controllers more

Loved controllers more

Tiny bot of def

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Not all secondaries worked

Not all secondaries worked well with every pet class. /traps, my fav secondary, was hideous with necro (and, I presume, ninjas, though I never tried it.). i.e. a set that was melee-oriented for minions and lieuts.

Thugs' melee was the bruiser, the boss level, so he was tough enough to last a little.

So I rerolled the necro with /poison and /dark, both of which are more controller/debuffery type, and boom, they were viable, since I could wimpify npcs enough that the minions weren't slaughtered as easily.

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I found Ninja/Poison to be a

I found Ninja/Poison to be a good combo, I had no trouble in PvE or PvP. I was usually in Body Guard mode and had my defenses soft capped with IO's. The Oni usually just hung out with me and I put Noxious Gas on him and stood in the aura--it took the fight out of anything foolish enough to enter melee with me.

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Sorry if this is considered a

Sorry if this is considered a necro, but I didn't want to make a brand new thread. I played Mastermind's more than any other AT in CoH. My first MM was a Bots/Traps, but later my favorite became a Demons/Pain MM.

As for the topic of faster summons that are more disposable, I once had an idea that I posted on the City of Heroes forums. It would have taken a lot of work, but may have proved interesting.

I always wondered if there could be a kind of AT or something that was like a mastermind, but instead of summoning pets, you summon "parts". These parts would be added on to your character, and provide different attack options and could be targeted individually. I imagine it could be used to satisfy people who wanted to pilot giant power armor, or maybe even "shape shift" into some type of creature.

Essentially the pets would just become extensions of your character, and the upgrades for the pets could improve those extensions and provide more attack options. Any thoughts on this?

Darth Fez
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Definitely an interesting

Definitely an interesting idea. One major drawback, of course, is that the 'pets' would, presumably, not be able to go off on their own to attack or chase down enemies.* It could also be quite difficult to keep track of the state of the pets and which pets have been summoned/destroyed, although a solid pet HUD would make all of this trivial.

The only difficulty I can imagine is that it could make the character's movement look extremely strange, unless the skeleton were adjusted to suit the new appearance. Naturally the giant power armor could not be so giant, due to issues with clipping in interiors.



* There were times when I would have just about killed to have this 'feature' for my MM.

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SirJeal wrote:
SirJeal wrote:

Sorry if this is considered a necro, but I didn't want to make a brand new thread. I played Mastermind's more than any other AT in CoH. My first MM was a Bots/Traps, but later my favorite became a Demons/Pain MM.
As for the topic of faster summons that are more disposable, I once had an idea that I posted on the City of Heroes forums. It would have taken a lot of work, but may have proved interesting.
I always wondered if there could be a kind of AT or something that was like a mastermind, but instead of summoning pets, you summon "parts". These parts would be added on to your character, and provide different attack options and could be targeted individually. I imagine it could be used to satisfy people who wanted to pilot giant power armor, or maybe even "shape shift" into some type of creature.
Essentially the pets would just become extensions of your character, and the upgrades for the pets could improve those extensions and provide more attack options. Any thoughts on this?

Can I Haz a Cup Holder too? ;D

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I rolled probably 7

I rolled probably 7 controllers, and I deleted them all. I made 1 Mastermind, and I played him all the time. He was robotics/dark miasma. Fun as hell. I never felt the urge to create another Mastermind though. He was enough to satiate my Mastermind urges.

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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

Definitely an interesting idea. One major drawback, of course, is that the 'pets' would, presumably, not be able to go off on their own to attack or chase down enemies.* It could also be quite difficult to keep track of the state of the pets and which pets have been summoned/destroyed, although a solid pet HUD would make all of this trivial.
The only difficulty I can imagine is that it could make the character's movement look extremely strange, unless the skeleton were adjusted to suit the new appearance. Naturally the giant power armor could not be so giant, due to issues with clipping in interiors.
* There were times when I would have just about killed to have this 'feature' for my MM.

Indeed, a good hud would resolve that issue. As for the giant power armor bit, recently the developer's of this game mentioned the ability to grow giant sized, and they are hoping to get that to work, lol.

But yeah, just like how each minion in CoH/CoV had their own life bar, each part would essentially have their own life bar. Perhaps if the enemies targeted "you" instead of a single "part" the damage would be spread out to multiple pieces like the bodyguard system that they had.

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Cinnder wrote:
Cinnder wrote:

What was wrong with Singy? I loved my Singy.

Exactly! The Singularity was excellent. Especially for when you need a doorway or hall blocked. Didn't like to move too much so you could park that bad boy and have pretty good range away from it to deal with other mobs.

Oh how I miss my Grav Troller.

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Izzy wrote:
Izzy wrote:

SirJeal wrote:
Sorry if this is considered a necro, but I didn't want to make a brand new thread. I played Mastermind's more than any other AT in CoH. My first MM was a Bots/Traps, but later my favorite became a Demons/Pain MM.
As for the topic of faster summons that are more disposable, I once had an idea that I posted on the City of Heroes forums. It would have taken a lot of work, but may have proved interesting.
I always wondered if there could be a kind of AT or something that was like a mastermind, but instead of summoning pets, you summon "parts". These parts would be added on to your character, and provide different attack options and could be targeted individually. I imagine it could be used to satisfy people who wanted to pilot giant power armor, or maybe even "shape shift" into some type of creature.
Essentially the pets would just become extensions of your character, and the upgrades for the pets could improve those extensions and provide more attack options. Any thoughts on this?

Can I Haz a Cup Holder too? ;D

After EverQuest, I once imagined a game where a necro (or mage or gnome clockwork master or ???). assembled a large pet (say, skeleton for necro) from parts they gathered up.

They could ride on its shoulder, and the game was fighting with it. If it got destroyed, it fell apart, and you had to go get the parts from where it was. You could optionally pay an NPC "recovery org" to go get it from a dangerous situation, which took time (and they literally ran over and did it, not just magically teleport the pieces.)

These pieces were things you upgraded via spells and gems and whatnot -- so if you got replacment parts, you were starting over, so to speak.

As you leveled, you could construct larger and larger until you had a 50 foot tall monster.

You could also have weaponry placed on the monster with other people manning those weapons. Eventually you had a walking battleship.

In any case, ignoring the giant aspect, having a persistent pet with upgrades like found weapons, or pursuing a quest in the Himalayas for a monk blessing, is an enormous aspect of fun.

Most games sadly bail on that and your pet is a conjured thing, end of story. Buffing via equipment, if it exists at all (boo Vanguard MMO) is also temporary.

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Oh, I think summoning laser

Oh, I think summoning laser eye beams, missile barrage, a giant fist or foot coming through the ceiling from your Giant Robot you have parked outside is a viable option for an indoor mission.