When you hear that name of a power set and it's called "Fire Blast" you generally know what to expect, from a flavor standpoint. you expect your toon to shoot fire in some way.
what does "Fire" do, in the game mechanics sense, well that's another question, but you'll learn what fire's properties are as you play the fire powerset.
In CoT, the plan is to flip that script to some extent, making power sets with names like "Ranged Burning" which is descriptive of the actual mechanics, not the flavor. This actually is being done so as to divorce the idea of fire from the mechanics such that you only have to lock yourself into the mechanics, not the flavor or skin that Fire would bring, as a thing.
In CoX, all "Fire" was "damage, plus some DoT, or maybe just DoT in some cases, plus a lot more/better AoE than most sets". It made sense, given our real life understanding of real fire, that such a set would have such mechanics. That mechanics package screams "fire" to you when you see it, hear about it, play it or are hit by it.
With the schism between mechanics and flavor, players will lose the ability to inherently understand what a set is or how it's supposed to work, to some extent, I would expect.
How can we help players with that? Would any of the following appeal to any of you:
1. Some kind of "garden variety" example of each power in each set, like maybe an example NPC that demonstrates the power with the most easy-to-understand version of the animations and colors to try to exemplify each power as best it can.
2. A tutorial for players to run through that focuses on this problem somehow.
3. Having a "beginner" character builder for players to use that starts out all powers with "suggested default settings" for everything. You pick a set, like "Ranged Burning" it defaults everything to use the "Fire" animations and colors, etc, but you can change it from there to a bunch of other stuff.
4. Rely on the forums and the wiki to explain most of it.
Any other ideas?
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
This might be a good idea especaly with some of the more vague power sets. Energy was one of my favorite blaster flavors back in CoH but I never knew what made it stand out in comparison to all the other blaster types tell I got the Prima guide which had all the numbers (still have it around here somewhere for the memories.)
My understanding of what City of Titans is trying build is a condition in which Form LITERALLY FOLLOWS Function.
Set up the game mechanics first. Decide the "function(s)" of the various Powers within the sets, and THEN after that decide which Forms would be appropriate to fit those functions. After that it's just a matter of animations, visual FX and sound FX decided in the Costume Editor.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
^^^^
Right here.
So instead of a "Fire Blast" what we have is "Burning" which denotes a DoT attack chain. It can mean fire, but it can also mean freezer burn, acid burn, the key is that DoT action. It does mean thinking less about how something looks, and more about what you want it to do.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
I don't think the OP was discussing how the sets are designed, but how to quickly grasp what a set does since there is a possibility that a power set name may not be as distictive and therefore, throw newer players off. The example of understanding the difference between a Fire Blast set compared to a Burning Blast set, or what happens when a melee set isn't named by the type of weapon, or even a category of weapons, and can be named to convey how the melee set operates while still having the broad application of hand to hand fighting or melee weapon use.
To this end, I have strived to first, name the sets appropriately. And I will admit, this is a struggle to both cover function and still sound interesting, while avoiding specifics, but also because there are others that still tend to want to name sets into categories that in my opinion, are too limiting. When having a shield is simply part of the costume, and a required limiter on what the set can do, well it doesn't make much sense to make a set named Shield Defense when any set can use one and just end up with appropriate animations.
Another thing I have done while going through all our mark 1 sets is to make sure each is appropiriately themed, like the example of Burning does DoT. I also write up a tag-line; a quick one to two line description of what the set does. This can be provided in the short description field when a player chooses a power set. I do plan to write up an accompanying long (a brief several sentence paragraph) desciption of the set.
When choosing powers it may also be helpful to be able to view the details of the power info from within the character creator and it is something we've discussed providing. Finally, we also discussed having something like a power testing station, a place where a player can go and test out the powers in a set to see how it performs over the course of multiple powers so they can both know how it functions within the game prior to choosing their next power and also quickly get an idea if the set is to their liking.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
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[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
There's no need to rely solely on telling when one can also take advantage of the ability to show.I feel that a big step to help people understand what a power set does, what they want to do, and what's actually available is to have a means to easily view which combinations of power sets and animations / effects are available. Especially if, as I presume, we will most likely be choosing power sets first and then an available animation. For some - perhaps even many - people the animation will be more important. Since either one could be a deal maker or breaker for people, it'll be good to have some idea of this rather than to go in blind. (It would be quite a downer to get excited about a power set only to discover that it doesn't have a suitable animation set.)
This could also double as a convenient database for animations since, as the game ages and obtains more power sets and animations, it's going to be difficult for even veteran players to keep track of all this information.
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I like the idea of the text descriptions of the sets. I would ask you to make sure those can be edited easily (by the devs) as time goes on. I think some of the CoX ones were outright lies at one point because they failed to maintain the descriptions well.
As for the descriptions themselves, were I going to write a description for CoX's "Fire Blast" I probably would have described the set as "A ranged damage set which has DoT as a secondary effect of most attacks, or as the primary damage dealt in some cases. Set also uses multiple AoE effects."
The better your description is, the more I think it reads as a "scouting report" on the power set, how it is intended to work, what makes it different from other sets, what it's strengths and weaknesses are relative to other sets, etc. I think you can do this without any real flavor component at all. You don't have to mention "fire" at all in the "burning blast" set, in fact it might be best not to do that. Some people might be inclined to use a different set for their "fire" blaster. Like maybe you want to use a set that has a lot of single target shots and a different secondary, calling it "Heat Beams" or whatever.
I would also like to ask for something. In Freedom Force, you could design your own powers. I don't want that, but I do want the ability to give my powers nicknames or subtitles or something that labels them as whatever I think of them as. So my "Ranged AoE Burning attack" might be subtitled or nicknamed "Fireball" for example, but someone else might call it "Acid Splash" or something.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
It might be Brilliant to allow the character creator to Start with animations and then choose a powerset to go with them?
I have no trouble with 'Ranged Burning Blast'. 'Mechanical' names are very clear. Then I'm free to obfuscate my way through animations and such. "Let's see, it's Burning, but with Negative Energy, using black 'Anti-fire'..."
Be Well!
Fireheart
Not quite on topic, but I'd like to thank Radiac for reminding us that English will steal words from any language. Even Martian. ^_^
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
True! Only English would grok like a Martian.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I think this is a great idea. Not only would this help players immerse themselves in their character more ...it also would give players a sense of individuality.
It might also make it easier for the devs to name powers.... now they don't have to come up with an all encompassing name to fit the animations they can just name the power based on its ability....
This idea was raised not too long ago and, as I recall, at the time Tannim either nixed the idea or put it down as a "maybe, but probably not".
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The head developer for Magic: the Gathering, Mark Rosewater, uses the word "grok" a lot in discussion of players' ability to "get" what a card "does" just by reading it the first time as opposed to having to really think about it and play it for a while before realizing its value. They also have a type of card they call a "trace buster buster" in reference to the movie "The Big Hit".
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I'm not saying I want to be able to change the official names of the powers, or even change the name of the power in such a way that other players could see my name for it. I just would like to be able to have some, say, 16 letter long string of text to slap on a power as a label telling ME what I think of that power as, if I want to. People could leave that slot blank.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
[img]http://everydaysaholiday.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/english_doesnt_borrow.jpg[/img]
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Careful, Fireheart. You're reaching for "chicken or egg" territory in terms of What Comes First there.
I can readily see the appeal for a naming convention that uses:
"Type" (melee, ranged, VoE)
"Theme" (burning for DoTs, kinetic for knocks, etc.)
"Descriptor" (blast, drain, etc.)
The problem is that may be insufficiently specific to differentiate all of the Powers available across multiple powersets (primary, secondary, tertiary). It's a delicate balance.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
It was actually something I had brought up as a possibility during one of our internal discussions on set / power design. It was decided something not to do for various reasons some of which include:
interface - there can be potentially a lot of powers which would all need to have customizable names
possiblity of corruption of data between under the hood processing of powers by name and disassociating the renamed label while still having them connected
possible player-base confusion over what who has what powers considering that powers will be visually customizable and may already end up with some difficulty in meshing well with what is being used - the concern being customizable names can lead to more confusion
increased requirements on filtering - name filters are bad enough, widening it to also apply to filter power names is more of a hassle, it also can lead to an increase in player policing which then of course can lead to an increase in customer support tickets to investigate any offensive naming that slipped through the filters - increasing work load
Simply put, standard naming keeps it simple.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
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[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
What if you make it so each spot on the powerbar can be named.... ?
I don't see most of these as insurmountable issues, especially if you consider it was not a request to let others see the names you picked. There has to be something else going on under the hood that would take much longer to explain right tannim?
As long as others can see my pets Names. ;D
No, I had requested a feature to let everyone see the renamed powers to go along with the customized appearance of powers to really let players create and express their unique characters to everyone else.
Personanlized (in viewing) customized naming could most likely be handled via a mod so long as the modified power name is seperate from the true power name for database purposes. This would mean there would be a disconnect from say combat info being provided from the server and the user's customized power naming. If it were a mod, it isn't something we as the dev team need to actually do other than properly providing modding capability.
Of course Izzy, that would probably fall under the name filter already. :P
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
So whats really stopping the power from being called ..
[b]'Ranged burn blast- [color=#FF0000](insert player made nickname)'[/color] [/b]
with the only system relevant portion being the official designation?
This would presumably solve the player confusion and corruption of data issues. It would most likely also make the interface aspect a non-issue.
As for the increase in filters and possible tickets... no getting around that...any player side customization increases the possibility of those who will abuse it.
That's why I ask if there is something under the hood. Keep in mind...I'm not invested in this... more just curious as to the design process and deciding factors in feature inclusion.
Being able to rename powers on my end is a thing that I would like, but not a high priority, just for the record.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
It would definitely be cool to be able to name our powers, even if it's entirely on our end. It would be nice if the name could somehow be shared in a combat log or such, e.g. "Darth Fez's Burning Blast (Fnord's Fantastical Facemelt) hits for 238.8 damage", but that's certainly not a must-have. However, as Tannim suggested, that's quite likely to be mod territory.
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I wonder how much optimization has been discussed for sending TCP/UDP data to and fro the server(s)?
Whether or not caching of player infos/other data would be done to the players local machine, and not have everything reside in RAM. SQLite? ;)
How and when to discard the local data from the players machine. etc... to prevent any hacking. Ex: While the CoT process is actively running, open the SQLite db to lock the file so others can't modify it.
Why go through all this trouble?
Simple. lower bandwidth.
Plus, instead of sending strings, send bytes over TCP/UDP, and do a look up via that bytes unique index in the SQLites db table entry.
And since TCP/UDP packets dont always arrive in sequential order, devise a way to Id the requests, or possibly use a Temp Table in SQLite db if RAM is low... depending on the data.
I'm no expert in this area, trying to use bytes/short int's as lookups, but it seems like taking this approach might get us the best bang for the buck from a bandwidth perspective. I might be overthinking it, as the UE4 or 3rd party TCP/UDP Communication Libraries have all of that under control. ;)
Maybe this is much more important when its all going through a single servers NIC card. Well, assuming its a single or integrated network chips on the MB. I assume there's a Ceiling of Throughput, Bus Lanes, etc... make up some techy words here. ;)
Just a concern when its a single server, unless there is a USB 3.0 Hub and additional Networking peripherals are planned for. :[
But I doubt adding more than 2 via the USB 3.0 bus lane will help, or would it diminish the throughput with each additional USB added network peripheral, as semaphores would start blocking. :/
Anyways, like i said, maybe i'm overthinking this. just ignore me. :<
Considering that you most likely would have to verify any locally cached data between play sessions then actually storing it wouldn't bring any real benefit, and I seriously doubt they would find it beneficial to cache so much during play sessiona as to "have" to write it to disc.
Referencing a local asset instead of sending that asset over the internet has been standard practice for many (at least 10?) years, and that regardless of if the asset is a 3D model, texture, sound file or even a simple text string.
A "single server" does not necessarily mean a single physical machine. In many cases (especially in regards to games) it refers to a single cluster and thus only one single instance of the server software running in total (outside of test/dev and such).
As far as NIC's are concerned there exists 4-port (RJ45) PCIEx4 cards that are primarily aimed at servers. You can also configure it so that several physical ports (on both switch and server) act as one "bigger" one, meaning you may only need one IP per machine.
Sorry. I didnt state this, but was thinking that maybe one day CoT would be able to run on an iPad 6. Today's iPads have 1 GB, so future versions might settle around 4 GB maybe. That's unless the Surface hasn't taken over the table market by 2018. ;)
This gave me an idea: power templates as UGC. Basically, it works like this: as far as the game engine, powers, and almost everything else is concerned, powers are as defined now: named after the function, don't care how you want to explain it, stick it in the fluff text, a bunch of sliders to set colors/firing points/weapon types, internals only think in terms of these powers and sets, etc.
But what if you could treat player-implemented (i.e. finalized, in-use) powers the same as you treat costumes? The combination of actual power, firing point, animation type, colors, and every other slider the player sets in defining how the power looks for their character can be packaged together and named by the player. Names are unique only to that character; the player could have two entirely different powers called "Fireball" on two different characters, for example. Maybe this power package could be given some fluff text by the player, too. And it's all keyed to that particular power in that power set, so no trying to pull some Burning Blast "Fireball" power over to Lemming Mastery; make a new one from scratch if you're so inclined.
Then you could layer on top of that a way to pack some or all of the powers of a set together as a powerset package, again with a user-given name and optional fluff text. Then you can give them the choice to save or load these things to files, and even to publish them in a Powers Library that other players can access, even during character creation. Standard UGC features apply: dev picks, ratings, etc. for them; search by name, filter by powerset (implicit if you're looking at this from the power editor for your character), filter by user, and so on. Just like you could share costumes.
Or maybe just leave that whole library thing to the plugin/mod layer. Just provide the APIs to edit powers and such like costumes and let others take care of building the rest.
None of this needs to be available at launch, of course. But it would be nice if a new player could just browse what other players have created for powers, load what they want, twiddle it a bit as needed, and hit the streets. And there's less demand for dev-generated equivalents, and no perceived false choice between spending all day getting everything to look right or getting stuck with the Same Damn Defaults Everyone Else Has.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Like the Power Customization files we had in CoH? Only more detailed.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Yeah, just also covering the details added by CoT's engine, letting you save or load per-power, not just all powers, and you get to stick names and help text on things.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]