I really love this idea to balance. The definition of your "burning" demonstration on KickStarter sounds very promising.
For those who missed it:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/645893
"For simplicity’s sake, we’ll stick to the first four tiers. We want to develop a DoT-based ranged power set. Let us call it “Burning.” We do not call it “Fire” because its effects can be used to represent much more than just flame. It could represent laser beams searing opponents, napalm grenades, raining fire and brimstone, or acid burns. A player could even go all out and nuts with their theme, using it in combination with tan-colored, wind-based animations, and call themselves the “Sand Blaster."
First, we look at our Progression option templates for ranged attack Power Sets. These are examples only and do not reflect a finished product. Further, it is almost guaranteed that things will change before release as we playtest.
EXAMPLE Ranged Attack Progression templates which coders use when designing a Set:
Progression 1: T1 - quick single attack, T2 - medium single attack, T3 - cone attack, T4 - heavy single attack
Progression 2: T1 - quick single attack, T2 - cone attack, T3 - quick targeted AoE attack, T4 - medium single attack
Progression 3: T1 - quick single attack, T2 - medium single attack, T3 - moderate single attack, T4 -heavy single attack
Progression 4: T1 - quick single attack, T3 - medium single attack, T3 - quick targeted AoE attack, T4 - moderate single attack
Etc.
So, we look at these, and since we want this rendition of Burning to splash over, so we (as developers) pick Progression Setup 2, which has less damage per-target, but hits more targets overall to give the same damage per second.
We then look at the damage Themes, or types (once again, these are examples only):
EXAMPLE Damage Types/Themes from which coders can choose when designing a Set:
Damage/Theme 1: DoT
Damage/Theme 2: Slow
Damage/Theme 3: Knocking-around
Damage/Theme 4: Accuracy Bonus
Etc.
As developers, we want a DoT for all of these powers, so Theme 1 it is. We combine these two and have ourselves “Burning” as a set. The beauty of this design is that it enables us to make new sets faster. In this case we wanted all DoT, so all attacks were Theme 1.
Another set may mix Themes, and include an attack with DoT (damage 1), an attack with an accuracy bonus (damage 4), and an attack with knocking-around (damage 3), in that order. And other sets will be built in the needed order to get the desired result. The goal is to give us the tools to give you more options over time with less effort.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I have questions spurred up from this conversation:
1) Will we be able to choose Damage Type (Temperature Damage, Psychic Damage, Particle Damage, Physical Damage, etc) for our chosen powers or just the animation? Will this be defined by the "passive"?
2) Will players be able to choose FX type for each individual power in the Progression or will you create FX/Animation Sets for players to choose from (Electric Set, Whip Set, Wind Set)?
3) Will the animations table for each power be the same for any 2 Progression Trees (Lets say 2 progressions both have a "quick targeted AoE attack" will the animation be the same in both progressions?)
4) Will there be options (Choose Cone attack or single target Medium Attack) for any progressions or will we we choose a progression and stick to it through the whole way? (See Champions Online Archetypes)
5) When "re-rolling" or "retconning" a character will players choose a brand new Progression Tree (And thus all the powers chosen in said progression)?
6) When "re-rolloing" or "retconning" a character will players be able to choose a new class? (And thus brand new progression tree, and thus all new powers)?
7) Will "Theme" choice be for the entire progression?
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Themes sound interesting. For instance: If I'm a operator (pet master) can I choose a theme of "healing pets" or "Target wiping pets" or "DPS Pets"?
This concerns me mostly because I am hoping for a tiered mez system with varied effects depending on Mez Points applied to target
example using fake numbers
0-1000 MP = Slow - Tier 1
1001-2200 MP = Root - Tier 2
2201-3500 MP =Fatigue {Cant cast powers as often} - Tier 3
3501-4000 MP* = Stun {Enemy is unable to cast a power} - Tier 4
*The top tier should be capped and have a lower threshold so players aren't stuck, unable to use their character in PvE and PvP
Maybe the "Theme" then becomes the top tier status effect? So at tier 4 the player chooses to: 1) Stun 2) confuse or 3) Interrupt over time ???
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Needless to say I'm excited about the Class Progressions and would like to hear more about themes as they pertain to classes that are not DPS (Healers, Tanks, Controllers)
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Just the animation. You pick the damage type when you pick the power set.
You will be able to choose FX types, although this may not be open-ended. We need to test to see how open-ended we can make it.
Likely, we will need more developed to be absolutely certain.
You would pick from either your primary or secondary power selection, or from a tertiary power selection.
You can choose a new powerset for secondary, not for primary.
Again, secondary, not primary.
The "Theme" is part of the powerset, not an independent choice.
Themes are part of the conceptualizing of a set, not something one selects from.
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
Does this mean I can change my spec, or just pick a different power set within the spec? For example, will I be able to change my Guardian from a Sentinel to a Vindicator when it comes out, because that better fits the character concept?
Firefly of Phoenix Rising
The target is to allow for the changing from Sentinel to Vindicator when it comes out.
By itself, this is a "curious yet interesting" idea. But then combine it with multiple builds for a character, and you can see the potential here.
We don't know if we can pull it off yet, but if we can, opens up new options for players.
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
Is this a technical limitation, or a design decision? If the latter, can you explain why?
I understand that there needs to be restrictions on characters, but I'd like to understand the details of why.
In this case, I had characters that mid-way in their career, realized that they'd fit better in another archetype. I considered re-rolling, but that means losing all the badges/achievements on that character. In this game, it'd also mean losing the consequences of the storylines.
I'd certainly be willing to pay a price for changing a character's classification, like a couple levels worth of influence/infamy or even through the cashshop. Because when I realize I built a character wrong, the only other choice is to stop playing that character. (And I'm sure you see the long-term problem of having characters that one is discouraged from playing.)
[size=1]Kickstart Backer # 771[/size]
Have you decided on how many damage types will be available and how they will interact?
I know in Champions Online they use three major trees of damage (Physical, Energy, Supernatural). In early days enemies would have defenses to certain types of attacks (ex: ghosts almost immune to physical attack); I liked this model thematically (and it encouraged teaming) but it was removed. Many powers however have inset resistances to certain damage types (usually their own damage type unless in Tank role)
In DCUO they seem to only use one class of damage..
In City of Heroes there was: Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative Energy, Toxic Psionic.. There were Many. The interactions were just as many.. leaving me too confused to create a character.
I've tried to sum up all the "damage" I can do to another person in 5 categories:
Physical Damage (Blunt or Cut), Supernatural Damage (Magic or Psychic), Temperature Damage (Hot or Cold), Particle Damage (Electric or Dimensional), Vital Damage (Poison or Vitals)
Some powers may not fit in ONE of these categories but rather more than one.
Example: Sonic Damage is actually half Physical and Half Particle damage. Darkness is actually half supernatural and half Vital. Telekinetic knife could be both supernatural and physical. Vine whips could be both vital (poison) and physical damage.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
For one with multiple character builds, 1 character could be multiple classifications which goes against the principle idea of encouraging players to create new characters for new experiences throughout multiple levels of game play. And keep in mind, we don't know if we can actually make it possible to switch an entire secondary power set yet - it could come with a enormous batch of problems. We want to provide as much freedom of choice and customization as possible, but at the same time we must do so within reason otherwise things could get muddled, making for a very incoherent, inconsistant gaming experience.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
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City of Heroes Damage Types (8):
Smashing/Lethal, Fire/Cold, Energy/Negative, Psionic, Toxic
Tabula Rasa Damage Types (8):
Physical, Sonic, Laser, Fire, Ice, Electric, EMP, Virulent
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Physical Damage, Supernatural Damage, Particle Damage, Vital Damage work fine
But Fire and Cold are opposites when it come to Temperature Damage.
A fiery monster may not be as vulnerable to fire as it would be to ice.
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I would have no problem combining smashing and lethal into one type, say "physical", but I like the other damage types from CoX. Having a variety of damage types makes it easier to offer a range of defensive sets and balance them.
-----------------------------------------
I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
I'm perfectly happy with the number of damage types. And honestly, things should be set up so beginning players can more or less ignore them without being completely hosed. For example, in CoX most beginning stuff did smashing and/or lethal damage, and most defenses were against these types as well. It wasn't until you got to Steel Canyon that you had to deal with fire, cold, etc., and that was several levels in, when you were ready for the extra complexity. And also about when power sets got the powers that used and defended against those damage types.
The whole point of the exercise with damage types is to add flavor and make the game more challenging than just "walk up to mob, smash, repeat." But too many damage types can get crazy to manage. So you have to ask, for each pair of types, "do these need to be distinct?"
Fire and ice need to be distinct. Fire and plasma not so much.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
No, because Plasma would be an Energy attack. The opposite of that (from CoH) would be Negative Energy
I don't feel that 8 damage types is too much. They were introduced slowly. However an optional "mission" to explain them to a new character wouldn't be reviled, as long as it could be dropped.
Eight is about the max I'd want to see for damage types though, and there should be no such thing as untyped damage.
Why not have some kind of composite layering system to damage types, it seems like the system is intended to have customizable sections of powers.
Resistance seems like it should be the basis IMO, for the physical damage components, generally defensively armor makers think of hot and cold, piercing, impact and slicing.
Energy is such a broad term, if you go deep enough everything is energy according to some physicists, What with quarks and such, the states of matter should be used though, for this, to determine the source of the damage, Solid, Liquid, Gas and Energy.
Solid is kind of obvious, hitting someone with a brick, a sword, a phone booth, all solid.
Liquid acts different, it soaks through, it permiates and sinks into fabric, so it can be resisted by impermiable materials, and is easily usable in such a broad scene as this.
Gases as another obvious defense, either through breath or other means they can do damage or affects and defensively or some other method could create a different means of combat or interaction of powers and attributes...
Energy, Fire is energy, Light is energy, Darkness is energy (Negative energy is still technically energy) As is mana, psychic projects, lots of things are energy, broadly enough that even solid things can be energy under the right circumstances (Create an electron shell of static electricity so powerful that it mimics the solid structure of a baseball bat. You're a really good mage? Or a static electricity manipulator.)
Nature of damage also seems to factor, Other, Strange and Normal.
Other, generally means other worldly powers, something ethereal or spiritual, psychic forces count like this.
Strange, is somewhat like other but relates to here, the native plane, which means something not normal, mutated or changed, perhaps water acting funny, or fire acting funny. Mage powers that manipulate elements can be considered strange. All magic is either strange or Other, Rocks don't fly into the air and float on their own, there is magical 'other' or 'strange' force there. Mutants can also classify under this category, feasibly.
Normal is just that, someone using normal, mundane or scientific things to work, making real ice, even if you used weird science, still acts like normal ice. Weird ice will act weird, somehow, or another because of it's magical nature.
The are kind of weird at first, but factoring them in you can specify defenses to things, combine and layer defenses according to how well someone handles the various categories into a defensive or offensive interaction.
Examples of Damage: Ice Guns (Produces real ice from very cold temperatures): Normal, Cold, Piercing (Assuming it launches shards of ice)
Fire Darts (Mage, uses metal darts as a component to the spell, Tungsten.) Other, Energy, Hot, Piercing.
Water Blasts (Orbs, psychically controlled) Strange, Cold, Liquid.
Torrent (column of water, powerful force, psychically controlled) Strange, Cold, Liquid, Piercing.
It's sort of complicated, but it also covers a lot., which is necessary when dealing with broad types of powers like heroes are bound to have.
Sorry if this is unwarrented or wanted. Just thought I'd through a couple pennies in.
That's just complicated for the sake of being complicated (almost). I really don't want to have to keep that all straight in my head at the same time.
I'd say go with 8 damage types [i]available to the players[/i] but then reserve 2 additional damage types for use in special cases (such as environmental for things like Falling and the much reviled "Untyped" sort). Or maybe even go with a "Base 8" damage type system and reserve an additional 4 types of special damage, so as to give the Developers "room" to do exotic things later on that they can't envision right now, even if they never wind up using all 4 and only use 2 for almost all content.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
It's not complicated to be complicated, it's complicated so that without creating or leaving limited openings for later updates, you just make a system at start that's simple and describes the damage defensively, name it whatever you want, it'll function in a certain manner. Though I will admit the names of certain things are just dumb, I still think the origin of damage is important defensively, examples being superman's weakness to magic, how do you factor someone being weak or strong against one origin? It should be possible, maybe that could be covered somehow else. Just one thought though, then there's color weaknesses... that, that is definitely overcomplicating. I could have done worse.
I'd wager that the Physical, Energy, Supernatural system covers most things...
although I'd wager Vital Damage is seperate (Being poisoned, or other things that have to do with directly affecting health)
And Dimensional Damage (Time powers, Black Hole event horizons, alien tech etc)
which are essentially the two i added..
I hope they keep a Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizards, Spock dynamic where each damage type actually MEANS something and are cognitive of them in the creation of their PvE enemies as well.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
The thing CO has isn't just 4 types of damage. In fact it's split into sub types.
Lemme explain...
You have the 4 All Encompassing Ones: Physical, Elemental, Paranormal, Energy
Each has 3 subtypes that count as their own damage.
Physical:
Piercing
Crushing
Slashing
Elemental:
Fire
Cold
Toxic
Energy:
Electricity
Sonic
Particle
Paranormal:
Magic
Ego
Dimensional
Then, of course, you have another splitting between Melee and Ranged with Physical, Particle, and Ego damage.
Now how did this come into play in terms of defenses? Well some of the offensive passives (as someone mentioned above) gave resistance to their own type of damage as well as some other types (Kinetic Manipulation adds resistance to ALL Physical damage as well as an extra boost to Ranged Physical resistance).
http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Slotted_Passive is a good place to look through how they did it. I actually quite like the idea though they should have added in "But you're less resistant to X type because it's logical"
[B]Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...[/B]
Roleplayer; Esteemed Villain
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Ty for the reminder.. It's been a while since playing. Please forgive my misinformation. I forgot that they did put toxic with elemental and Sonic and Particle into energy. Though Sonic Damage and Particle damage to the last of my recollection were largely non-existent.
Regardless of how other games split them, I think there are only so many ways to damage something.
There are some clear misnomers in the system CO uses. Sonic Damage is a concussive physical force imho. There is nothing Paranormal about Dimensional damage as most dimensional/wormhole theory exists in real world and Psychic/Magic/Soul things do not.
I particularly hated that telekinesis in CO had no option of physical damage. Sure some people have phychic knives.. then others have physical manifestations of mental power.
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This (to get back to the major point of the class progression discussion) to me suggests that forcing players into damage types is more of a balance issue than letting them choose their own.
Enemies should have varied resistances and the like, but unless EVERY damage type will be available to each framework and represented in a Progression.. there will undoubtedly be some mixtures that work better than others.
For instance, in many games, support characters tend to get stuck in the paranormal damage category using magic and other means to slow or confuse a foe. So if I want to metagame min/max I don't have to worry about getting resistance to paranormal damage because their DPS is likely going to be low and not able to "hurt" me.. while Energy and Physical Damage then become the only two resistances that matter because their Frameworks tend to have high DPS.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
What about damage effects?
I'd like to see not only damage types but different effects for your ability's that you could specialise into. Such as; Slowing, Glancing/miss, Piercing, Draining, Disorientating, Shocking, Rooting, Stunning, Crippling, Knock-back, Apocalyptic all these could be considered a "Critical Effect" or random positive/negative outcome. By Enhancing these Values into Specific Ability's you can increase the chance of one of these effects to almost certainty but loose the subsequent randomness.
For example
Fire DoT attacks might only do Glancing damage to begin with, then over time and reapplication progress to Disorientating, Crippling and then begin to take critical damage from the attack or you could specialise you fire attack to do drain the targets energy (its hard to breath when your on fire) maybe even throw in a cheeky slow effect.
You could begin to get very creative with this kind of progressive effects.
It wouldn't simply be -
"this is my DoT attack woopty doo I have to keep this applied at all times and watch the cooldowns other wise I'll loose out on dps"
It would feel like -
"if I focus on keeping this guy on fire then he will become and remain Disorientated and less able to fight And there by help my Friends"
Lets try another Example.
I have super strength lets just say I don't want to go around punching people though buildings. I just want to stun people I don't want to kill them. having this kind of system in place would allow people who are limited by the smashing nature of there ability's to specialise in to Disorientation and thus becoming a support class rather than a dps or tank class.
Lets say your this guys evil twin, you want to kill people, you want to kill people a lot, its your thing ... but you have super strength too but you don't want to chasing after people after you punch them through a building. Your a big guy you ain't got time for that, you've got places to be, people to kill. So you decide to just punch holes in people with your finger and cripple people's limbs.
Some of your abilities might be "Enhanced" towards Piercing, some Crippling.
Lets do a list now! People like lists right?
Glancing/miss - Natural Power Set Negative Effect
Slowing - Enhanceable Effect
Piercing - Enhanceable Effect
Draining - Enhanceable Effect
Disorientating - Enhanceable Effect
Rooting - Enhanceable Effect
Stunning - Enhanceable Effect
Crippling - Enhanceable Effect
Knock-back - Enhanceable Effect
Critical/hit - Natural Power Set Positive Effect (e.g burn, freeze, smashing)
Apocalyptic/Super - Enhanceable Rare Effect
All these things might do different visual things to different power sets.
"Wait! What was that last one?"
"Apocalyptic."
"Yeah that one!"
Apocalyptic is a rare effect only available to high end abilities because I felt that in "City of Heroes" you could Enhance your abilities beyond that of your cool charge up attacks. That felt wrong to me. So I propose the "Apocalyptic" effect or "super" effect; It allows a few effects to occur simultaneously or perhaps some special effects specific to your "Power Set"
I could go on and on and on with my ideas but I think that's enough for now.
I think the status effects you list are great. I do not however the crowd control system you propose, where effects are binary and have flat and often binary values I do not like.
Why would I ever use a slow enhancement over a root enhancement? Why ever choose EITHER of those over a stun enhancement?
No I think mez should ALWAYS be quality based. #MezPointsFTW
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Blunt (fists, hammers...etc)
Piercing (blades, bullets...etc)
Fire
Cold
Energy
Psychic (Telepathy)
Magic/Supernatural (Magic)
Dimensional/Cosmic
Toxic
Some of these could then be combined. Like Sonic might be Energy/Blunt. Regular Energy might be Energy/Blunt. Supernatural Fire could be Fire/Toxic/Magic, Fire/Magic. So maybe give a few different damage type options depending on the power themes?
Also, while thinking about it, let's please not put Telekinesis into the Psychic Damage category! :p It's blunt or slashing. Telepathy is psychic. Telekinesis may be created using one's mind, but it's generally blunt or slashing style damage (or lifting/sending flying blunt/slashing objects). You don't put pyrokinesis, the mental creation of fire, as psychic damage. :p
Maybe mostly Blunt and some Psionic? ^_^
On the topic of mezzes, I loved the way CoH worked too, though I would love a bit more autonomy, the ability to lock down groups more easily as a single person. Also, I thought it was silly when a group was basically screwed, or locked down and it couldn't just 'arrest them', this could work by basically letting a character lock down an enemy and when it's basically incapable of attacking because of outside forces, it 'dies' you get XP and whatever.
There's also another thing that might be useful, which could be cumulative status effect catagories, I think mutants and masterminds has a mechanic like this, it would be cool if it could be unique to each power, but to make it simpler perhaps there could be categories of tiers, that way magic fire, black fire, hell fire and cold fire could all do varying things, look the same and progress mechanically and uniquely. (These could be done in the form of a proc too or an enhancement that grants a second tier to a powers status effect, so that when it hits 5 stacks or 2 stacks or whatever a new effect is applied.)
Would be better than all psychic. Just a pet peeve of mine that makes me wonder what were people thinking? I get that there is less Psychic Attacks...most of them will be Telepathy based and that's it, but that's okay!
(Forgive the repetition)
I feel all damage falls into 5 types
Physical - blunt, sharp
Thermal - Hot, Cold
Particle - Electric, Dimensional
Supernatural - Magic, Psychic
Vital - Bleeding, Poison
I'd like to see 2 progressions of each damage type available at launch for all classes.
Then after launch they can start releasing hybrids of
Sonic - Physical/Particle
Darkness - Vital/Supernatural
Devine - Supernatural/Dimensional
Etc.
I don't know how damage choice will be made. I would love to see it picked as an overarching character choice like a "passive" but that's just me
Crowd Control Enthusiast
(Forgive the repetition)
I feel all damage falls into 5 types
Physical - blunt, sharp
Thermal - Hot, Cold
Particle - Electric, Dimensional
Supernatural - Magic, Psychic
Vital - Bleeding, Poison
I'd like to see 2 progressions of each damage type available at launch for all classes.
Then after launch they can start releasing hybrids of
Sonic - Physical/Particle
Darkness - Vital/Supernatural
Devine - Supernatural/Dimensional
Etc.
I don't know how damage choice will be made. I would love to see it picked as an overarching character choice like a "passive" but that's just me
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I'd put Electrical as Energy. Electrical would be pure energy damage, while something akin to Cyclops' eye blast would be Energy/Smashing.
Damage structure is, to me, a critical component in a game. It affects many aspects of the game (power sets, character creation, synergies, etc.). The damage created by a power is connected, but the damage theory is still separate. I like the idea of lumping damage types, but it needs to focus on what the power does to the target (they WAY it damages the target uniquely). That said, I would alter the above list to something like:
Physical (Smashing, Lethal)
Thermal (Fire, Ice)
Toxic/Vital (unique within itself, no polarity)
Energy (Positive, Negative)
Supernatural (Magic, Mental/Psychic)
I am not sure what Dimensional powers would be, maybe a mix of energy and supernatural. Bleeding, to me, is the secondary effect of lethal damage (a lethal DoT, which might make the target vulnerable to toxic for some synergy)
Supernatural feels like a catch-all and might need a lot of discussion. Energy is the one I struggle with, hard to visualize a great example that show unique affects on a target but it still feels unique. Electrical powers would have a “burn effect” and a positive energy effect on a target (if you’ve ever experienced an intense shock) so the damage types would be Energy and Toxic or Fire, with some secondary effects like end reduction and stun/hold. A fiery sword power would be Lethal and Fire. Energy and toxic seem like they would have unique effects on a target. So, Radiation powers might have elements of both energy and toxic in the damage, potentially even physical depending on the type of nature of the attack. Energy blast attacks would have energy and smashing.
The idea here is to create damage types with enough flexibility so as to define the damage types of each power, allow for creative synergies, but not overload the mechanics of the game.
"It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience" – Albert Einstein –
or "Everything should be kept as simple as possible, but no simpler."
"it's a long road to wisdom, but it's a short one to being ignored." The Lumineers
How about this then?
Physical (smashing, slashing, piercing, fragmentation, etc.)
Sonic (sound, pressure, hard vacuum, shockwaves, etc.)
Energy (positive, negative, electromagnetics, light, laser, heat, cold, etc.)
Toxic (poisons, diseases, acidic/basic chemical reactions, "entropy" aging, rusting, corrosion, etc.)
Mental (psionics, perception altering, mind affecting, etc.)
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
That's why I put magic/supernatural and dimensional/cosmic together.
Figure cosmic is maybe energy damage really, but maybe it's energy with a kick? So just a different type of energy damage.
Sam with magic/supernatural, generally about the same, seriously, people in CoH picked Magic Origin for Succubus who are born with their powers. :p Sounds more Natural to me. People like to call magic and supernatural the same...so tie it together. Then they could even so something akin to...
Werewolf 1) just has lethal claws
Werewolf 2) has lethal/supernatural claws
...because the concepts on what it would be is different, or maybe werewolf one is just a mutant who's power is lycanthropy and not related to any supernatural/magic mix?
In my suggestion dimensional energy would include whatever damage happens when you phase between dimensions. Portal powers, Density Powers, Cosmic (star energy) Powers..
Energy not covered by Thermal Energy would all fall under the particle/dimensional damage type in my theory.
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As a lover of science and physics, I will contend that dimensional theory exists in our real world and supernatural theory (Telepathy, Magic, Ghosts, Religion) does not.. but in a comic book universe the supernatural world obviously does exist.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Just coming back here to ask for more explanation on what frameworks will look like.. How will the "Sand Blaster" concept as you define it be realized? Still with heat damage?
If there is a tangible benefit to being forced into damage types (which I cannot personally see any mathematically or from a design standpoint..) then will players be allowed to sacrifice some of their build effectiveness to swap out (a power replacer system).
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I'm going to be frank, if the concept I'm seeking isn't able to be realized I will be disappointed. My entire SG of friends is based on original power sets.. the idea that none of us will be realized in Titan City is just not worth thinking about.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Jaybezz, I'm truly sorry if there's been any unintentional misdirection with the KS description of our frame work. It was clearly stated in that update that it was a peak into how the dev team was to design power sets. The part about customization that was explained was to indicate there will be flexibility in how powers look within a theme. It was never intended to imply total freedom in what damage a power does or what damage a power protects. If we design a Burning Set everything about that set will revolve around stuff that deals with burning / heat. It's not Attack Set 01 and the player assigning damage or other combat effects associated with the damage that would be selected. If a player wants a character who psychically projects fire, then the psychic part really has nothing to do with what the "happens" it's part of the background concept of origin, but in the end fire is fire,
I'll give a very brief example, but please keep in mind this is not a promise of a true thing to come and is purely for example only. I want to make Burn Trick a person that uses magic to summon fire. I take a Ranger becuase I like to play ranged sets, and choose Burning Blasts as his set. One of the animation options offered is a suite of Rune Casts where the character draws runes in the air and it sends out a fire blast or the rune surrounds the target and then explodes in a ball of flame. My damage isn't magic damage, its fire damage becuase that's what the "magic" does, it creates fire. The magic is just a skin foe what the power does.
An example of how damage type customization could pose problems is something like this: a dev creates a new damage type we will call it damage 02. Damage 02 happens to be rarely dealt with in pve. Dev tested damage 02 in one set and it performed within the expected range. However different sets have different output capability, and if damage 02 is placed anywhere else it improves performance of other sets over all other damage types significantly, and in some like the one tested, within the range of expectation, and in quite a few is leaps and bounds outside the range of expectation. So then either a bunch of sets need to be retuned, or a bunch of the game world encounters need to be retuned. Neither is healthy for a live game. To do this before the game goes live would require a massive amount of development time because each power set and combination of power sets and combination of damage types would need to be tested to make sure they all operate within the bounds of expected performance.
Some sets may have limited options of customization, particularly at launch. Other sets may offer, at some point in time, offer a surprising amount or variety of customization to the point that if you weren't aware of what the power was doing, one might think it was a compleltely different set altogether simply becuase the theme offers a wider interpretation. Between having a very customizable character appearance, choosing from a variety of classes, power sets, point of origin for power emissions, various animations, and colors, we hope to provide enough customization to cover many, many concepts.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I am the argumentative type, but I hope you know this isn't me being self concerned when I say this:
I think it's poor development if one damage type is represented in PvE more than others. I don't think it should be an advantage (or disadvantage) for any player to have a certain damage type because "it has a different output capacity". I am a strong voice for build parity. If it's good for the Electric then it should be good for the Toxic (goose and gander).
I am very anxious to see what "build parity" means in City of Titans. I've played plenty of games that "put Kontrol in the corner" and I have not been happy when it happened in said games. I'm not gonna fake the funk, I heard one thing then and am hearing another now. Disappointment feels eminent (not just for me but for everyone). I do feel a bit "duped" by Update #37 but I said when it came out that it was ambiguous and the frameworks discussion deserved more. I was extremely energized by the update. I don't have buyers remorse, but I have always hated being "sold on the vision" (Peter Bailey anyone?). I feel a bit of personal embarrassment for buying before checking and I can't excuse myself on that front.. doesn't make it better but/and I can accept my walking blind.. just doesn't make the result any easier to swallow.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I might be wrong here, but the way I always understood power set balance to be designed was a combination of damage and a secondary effect. So, for example, a power set with knockback as a secondary might have less damage output to compensate for the enemy's being temporarily incapacitated. It sounds to me like this marriage between primary and secondary has to be locked down somewhat in order to preserve this balance between power sets, or else testing during development becomes a monumental task -- which is what it looks to me like Tannim is saying. I can understand that completely. It's also what I understood the design to be in CoT from the Kickstarter information, though I can see why it might have been interpreted differently by some folks.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Once damage of different types is introduced, particularly in a system as large as an MMO, there will be differences in how that damage is dealt with inside of the game's world, not everything will always be equal. Otherwise, typing damage is superfluous and all that would be needed damage. At its base damage is "type less" the system doesn't care if its made to look like fire or ice, but once damage is given a label and is treated differently based on its label, there won't be parity. For example in our predecessor, psychic damage was very rarely dealt with in the early game and it wasn't until the devs placed its resistance in heavy amounts in the end game that it became prevalent within the games world.
Now within the sets that provided this damage type, the damage output in a general encounter throughout most content was within acceptable bounds. If however players could place their own damage type wherever they wanted, certain sets may have performed too well or past the bounds of what was considered acceptable. To which the ways to resolve this would either be to retune all those sets for every damage type or retune all the encounters in the world. Otherwise damage wouldn't need be typed and damage mitigation wouldn't need to differentiate between types.
With regards to update 37, it quite specifically says in the paragraph prior to describing the power progression, is that players will pick their power set which already has its theme, then you get to customize the animations. There was no mention of changing damage types. The examples given for different types of animations for a burning set were just that, examples of what might constitute various animations players could choose for their burning set, and was not meant to convey the idea that players would be able to change damage types.
And I'll be honest, I did bring up the possibility of doing so in several ways on several different occasions, and while its possible the enormity of the work involved would put us in danger of missing our goals of delivery. One person described it to me this way, it falls into vapor ware territory.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I don't advocate players choosing the damage type(s) on a individual power level but on character level.
The "theme" as it was defined in the update was not damage specific. It said "Ranged DoT". This theme could be fire damage, but it seemed to suggest (with the "Sand Blaster" in the least) that the theme could also be physical damage.
I completely understood the devs creating the sets based on the themes and mixing of themes. But the definition of what a "theme" is/was did not imply that the framework set would be stuck to one damage type. It is the definition of "Theme" that, even now upon re-reading (and re-re-reading) that I feel misinformed and mislead about.
Finally, the idea that the PvE content would need to be reworked because a certain damage type is more prevalent in early or later game is a design problem with the enemy planning. There is no reason for one set to be on EZ mode just because they chose X damage type framework from levels 4-15.
I do not want a typeless system, and I do not accept your assertion that damage types cannot have parity. It is a false argument. There may be good points and reasons why choosing your damage type (at a character level) is bad for the game, but I do not see the rationale in this particular argument as valid.
I appreciate your desire to have concepts represented. I love flames as much as anyone but am much more excited by mystic damage flames or psychic flames because it's not the rote or expected. I love telepaths but mind control has been done to death the same way. I love energy weapons but why can't they ever be made of poison instead? I love stone armor, but why not make the stones out of telekinetic energy? What if my ability to knock you across the room with my fist comes from having dimensional/teleporting powers instead of super strength? It leads to more originality and personality.
As much as you may want to create the "dimensional melee knockback" theme it takes a whole lot of time to create one theme for "few players". If you're a "dimensional melee knockback" character you may never exist in CoT. By creating a "Melee Knockback" theme and allowing the player to choose the ONE damage type their character focuses on using you don't have to create all the microbuilds and players don't have to wait for their specific framework nearly as long. The system is still expandable with new themes, new animations and new FX.
The horse may in fact be dead so I will stop riding it, but I cannot hide my disappointment.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
*is in a rush*
"This theme could be fire damage, but it seemed to suggest (with the "Sand Blaster" in the least) that the theme could also be physical damage."
This is an example of a purely animation change and had not been intended to imply a change in damage type.
" I love flames as much as anyone but am much more excited by mystic damage flames or psychic flames because it's not the rote or expected. I love telepaths but mind control has been done to death the same way. I love energy weapons but why can't they ever be made of poison instead?"
Here's an example from our discussions on appearance vs damage type. I send out by Purple Bunnies from my Purple Bunny cannon. What do they purple bunnies do? They explode setting you on fire and knocking you down. Well then, they do fire damage since they're exploding into flame. This is of course a hyperbolic extreme for an example, but the point being, if they power "poisons" someone, then it doesn't matter if the "poison" is because the player determined they someone have psychic control over biotmetrics, or if they shoot a needle from a gun, the end result is that its poisoning.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
So Tanim, in a similar vein to what you're explaining...
Say a character has superpowers based on ionic manipulation. I choose the DoT damage type to deal fire, I change the animation casting to throw out lightning. When I activate the power, lightning shoots from my hands Palpatine style, hits the mob with fire damage and... how does that DoT appear on the mob? Is that always a fire visual, electric visual, or no visual? is it possible in the future to have that customizable since it's primarily visual (outside of the small indication to the recipient of said attack that s/he has been hit with a fire damage attack that is now ticking with a DoT)
[i]“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” -Douglas Adams[/i]
Electric visual. The visuals are tied to the animation.
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
Select any offensive powerset that does mystical or psychic damage, then apply animations and colors that look "flamelike", and roleplay as needed. Roleplay includes self-applied roleplay, since I might choose to make a character who does lethal [physical-piercing/cutting] damage (via the Dual Blades* powerset), while appearing to punch/kick things (Street Fighting* animations), because she has elevated permissions in a computed reality system that controls the multiverse, and she has adjusted it to project atomic-level disassociation planes as part of her attacks (roleplayed concept, with limited hints in bio).
Specifics would be needed, before anyone could propose a solution.
Select an offensive powerset that does toxic/poison* damage, apply energy weapon* animations, roleplay.
Select any defensive powerset that provides combat effects that you think are most appropriate for someone who is generating telekinetic stones, apply stone armor* animations and customize color/translucency* to get the desired visual effect, roleplay.
Select any powerset that does a lot of knock (superstrength, martial arts, kinetic melee, peacebringer)*, apply whatever fist motion animations and colors look the most "dimensiony/teleporty"* to you, roleplay.
*not all of these may be available at launch, but nothing I've heard so far about the design of the system would prohibit them from being made. I also used CoH powersets for easier understanding, but of course CoT might use different names or combine different damage types and secondary effects in its powersets.
My specific character uses Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (electrical impulses ) to control people's brains (much in the same way as a telepath would but with electric damage.
Fast-forward:
If the "confuse" effect is only in the controller-mentalist or controller-supernatural set and not available in the hypothetical controller-electric set I'll be upset. Then I'm forced to choose to do supernatural-psychic damage to get the mechanics I want or have a concept that does the correct type of damage and have mechanics that I want.
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I do hear what you're saying that there are options to work around - the last of which is "roleplay it". But I'm just speaking for the friends of mine who i've talked to about the game since this update in KS.. we all have unique perhaps unconventional builds.
I have a really sinking doubt that our builds will be represented mechanically in all ways but damage type. It's happened in the other supers games we've played including CoH and CO and DCUO.
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We're leaving pre-production and we have heard so little about the actual combat systems.. I understand the game must move forward with the plans you've made. I hope the devs take a real and actual damage-type replacement system as a high priority when we get to the alpha stage of combat because it's a very high priority for me.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I can say we currently do not have plans for damage replacement or selection, not for launch. It may be possible at some point in the future, but its more or less on a list of stuff that might or might not happen. / come back / revisit at a later time (white boarded).
What damage a set does isn't as necessary as to what it can do and what you can make it look like. If your concept is controlling electric impulses of the brain to control minds like say a confuse, then what is important is that you find the set that provides those effects and apply the animations to fit the concept. Perhaps, and again this isn't a promise of a thing to come, it would be possible for the concept to exist if there were a psychic set with electric-like animations. There was never the promise made for the type of free form building you've described. Internally we've discussed it, determined the amount of work necessary to implement to be too high, and had to move forward.
We hope to provide a wide range of customization as of yet fully realized in the genre of a comic themed MMO. Will every possible concept a person can conceive be possible? Probably not. Will the range of what is available at launch cover everyone's wish list. Probably not. There will be a lot of options, and hopefully were successful enough to keep on providing tools to make even more concepts a reality.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Once again I'll use CoH terminology.
Select Electric Control* or Mind Control* as the powerset, then apply Electric Control or Electric Melee* animations to each power to make them all look like they're using electric fields to affect the targets. If part of your concept is that your character can only induce this effect by touching a single target, then you'd have to handle that through roleplay, since both confuse powers (Synaptic Overload and Confuse) are ranged and one is multitarget. If you choose Mind Control as the powerset - perhaps because you think its secondary effects are a better match for TMS, then you'd have to roleplay the damage as electrical. Unlike CoH, CoT can at least give you the chance to make it look electrical to you and everyone else; only the combat log and power description gives away the fact that most of the mind control powers are doing psychic damage.
Of all your examples, this one is the most difficult to solve without a genie to make Tannim's whiteboard list reality, since it's asking for an electric damage powerset to contain a confuse - unlike your other examples, it requires a specific pairing of damage type and control effect, which CoH didn't have until long after launch. If I wanted, say, a villain who controls and damages people with neurotoxins and poisons, I'd have to close a bigger gap with roleplay until such a powerset could be created. I'd probably try to use electric control as the powerset at first, since CoH didn't offer a toxic damage control powerset. At least in CoT, I could make it *look* much more like toxic damage by applying pistol or spines animations, depending on how my villain actually delivered the toxins.
Whatever CoT eventually has in terms of psychic and electrical control powersets would determine the reality of how close you can get, and thus the size of the gap that has to be filled with roleplay. When I mentioned roleplay, I only did so as that final gap-closing action that stacks with the selection of powerset and animations. Roleplaying a massive gap is disappointing (to me, and it seems true for you as well), so CoT's steps forward (even if not as freeform as you may want) can shrink those gaps in comparison to character creation in any other game. Keep in mind that a private CoT server with the right core system design could, within minutes, close the damage type and secondary effects roleplaying gap for you, if those character concepts are more important to you and your friends than being in the highest populated server. ...and if MWM is more permissive of such things, as many non-institutional game developers are.
My concern is extensibility - making sure that the core CoT system design allows for easy creation of powersets later, and does not inherently forbid the player from connecting powersets to unconventional animations. Actually getting all of those powersets and animations to be created is a huge task, and I am patient. Many of my concepts will probably require massive roleplay gap-closing at launch, but an extensible system means that list should shrink over time, as powersets diversify to to cover more damage types and secondary effects, and more animations are added to the library of alternatives.
*same disclaimer as before.
SJ and JB have struck a chord that I myself have concerns with, clarifying that set progression and damage typing may be too limiting to what I wish to build as a unique hero.
My planned main, likely after launch since the set I desire to roll him as won't be available at launch, has control over producing positive and negative ions. Certainly the buff set with a ranged damage set for a hero that manipulates ionics would be fitting in a number of damage types (electric, fire, toxic, poison), but the hard reality I've always known is that I can only pick two of these for the overall concept. The only way for such a powerset pairing exist for me and fully encompass everything I'd desire it to achieve, I would need the ability to say powers 1, 2, and 4 have electric visuals while powers 3, 5, and 6 have fire visuals. Meanwhile I may want an ally-buff to have an electric effect but the group shields to look more like force bubbles.
Ultimately, I too am finding the scope of power appearance and structure is going to be more limiting than what I dreamed based on the noble intentions of KS#37. That said, I understand that certain design calls had to be made during Pre-production and even more features are already in a future list of the intentions that must get cut for 1.0.1 and will get white-boarded for patch 1.1.1 or patch 1.2.1 or even patch 3.4.7 (using blizzard's format since I don't know what MWM will use and I can't recall the specifics of Cryptics patch numbering). After all, throughout the KS they said design dreams were subject to change. I hope some of the progression designs eventually make it even if it's not gonna make 1.0
[i]“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” -Douglas Adams[/i]
So I've been thinking about what the game looks like without the choice of damage type.
Lets say there's a telepathy set that does supernatural (psychic) damage but it's only on the control set.. then players do not see the need to mitigate psychic damage because it's not the typical DPS set.
By having damage types chosen by frameworks there will inevitably be some damage types that are represented in certain ways.. mathematically it's something constantly under-represented.
Can you devs provide hints to what your plans are to avoid this inequality?
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Who says psychic damage has to be only on the control set?
Just has players cannot choose damage type, players won't be able to choose damage mitigation, other than ignoring certain powers. And if a player chooses not to pick certain powers that offer certain forms of mitigation, and they do encounter it at some point in the game, they'll pay the price for that choice then.
This does mean we have to be careful in both how we design our game-world encounters, and how we design are defense and support sets. Given the fact that we are going to have types of damage, and thus types of damage mitigation, and a diverse game setting, will probably result in some form of inequality of encountering different types of damage.
Allowing players to choose their damage type and even their damage mitigation could end up with similar results.
The current thought, and as of yet, hasn't been modelled since we are still building out our game world, and defining / refining the systems for damage and mitigation, is that if a particular form of damage is rarely mitigated in game in comparison with other forms of damage, then the rarer form of damage will result in different outputs in comparison so that over-all it results within whatever bounds we define as "within range". Nothing will every be totally equal, just there is no "true balance" in an MMO, one oft used phrase that comes up is "balance is a false god". Instead "balance" in an MMO with such diversity as we intend to represent, is within the bounds of expected performance.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Am I really one of the few people that knew instantly what was intended by the KS update detailing power effects versus animation effects?
Is damage type really THAT important to you that it makes or breaks a game?
'Burning' can mean many different things, but mechanically a set using this description should be understood to have a DoT effect and likely a form of heat damage as the damage delivery vector. The animation may use liquid or particle effects, or even just have them available to use, but the damage type shouldn't be that important as long as the look that you want is able to be found somewhere. If I can get a Burning Control set and am able to use a viscous liquid effect, suddenly it's not Burning Control anymore despite that being the mechanical effect. It's now Snot Control paired with something that grants effects similar to Thorny Assault, and I have made the CoT version of Bristleback from DoTA except with a lot more than two active powers to use.
If the pairs you can get bring you close enough to your vision where the ONLY obstacle in your path to perfect enjoyment of the game is the damage type, then you need to suck it up and take what you can get. If it looks like electricity and feels like electricity, but the powers you want force you to pick a set that does 'direct HP removal' damage, then you need to look beyond the damage type and not care so much about mechanics when the effects are perfect.
The original Lady of Ysgard. -Virtue
[img]http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/203/c/5/Updated_Homage_by_Voldine.jpg[/img]
I don't know if I'd state it quite as strongly, but I must say I agree with you Voldine.
Spurn all ye kindle.
No. Categorically rejected. Telling any player to "suck it up" and "get used to it" will always get a thumbs down from me. Taking the dismissive tone you've taken is not how I want to view my peers. Please do not presume to tell me what I or anyone else "need to do."
This is a roleplaying game. So yes, having the game represent characters in the game-world accurately is very important to me. I would rather have mechanics represented accurately than having the look. The look is reportedly changeable and expandable and was announced as such before the KS update.. so interpreting that "Burning not Fire" update as damage type (even after re-reading it months later) is understandable. To be frank, the Kickstarter post is obviously open to interpretation as I have seen many interpretations and was probably purposely written as such.
I don't represent everyone nor do I try to; I am here representing myself and the superhero game I hope to play.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
This concept is actually what basers did in CoX. We took stuff like furniture and built tanks, planes, and entire apartment complexes with them and for the most part, they did look like what we were trying to create. More over when others came visit our bases, they were actually amazed on how we can manipulate "furniture" to construct stuff that matched our imagination. I agree with what you say because like with cox base making, it allows you make powers to your own interpretation.
I suddenly want a gun that shoots exploding bunnies....
not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM
[CENTER][URL=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm][IMG]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/24.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER]
Purple Bunny Cannon should be a bonus to those who take part in the KS or Beta as a Temp Power:
Once every 5 mins you can shot this weird and wonderful cannon that launches 3-5 Purple Bunnies in a cone. Each bunny will explode upon reaching a target doing Moderate Fire damage plus KD (NOT KB!!!!!!) to all foes in a small radius (3'?).
Maybe also as a regular random chance or during 'special events' = There is a very small chance (5%?) that firing the Purple Bunny Cannon will launch a single Huge Purple Bunny (Max Size for a character) that pounces on the primary target and exploding doing Severe Fire damage plus KD to all foes in 15'.
All bunnies giggle on the way to their target(s).
If we really wanted to take this even further (and why not??) the targets could all scream "Run away run away" but this could be IP infringement...?
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
Also a 20% chance that armoured enemies soil themselves.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Oh boy, now see what I've gone and started...next there'll be an SG called the Purple Bunny Brigade and....
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Hey now, we do not have exploding bunnies...
Rubber duckies, however, are fair game!
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
Poor Ernie!
Spurn all ye kindle.
Explosive Panda Fireball!
You are officially the best thing ever
not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM
[CENTER][URL=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm][IMG]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/24.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER]
Not my idea:
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
....that needs to be a thing in the game.... please tell me that's a thing in the game...... soooo much want.......
not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM
[CENTER][URL=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm][IMG]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/24.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER]
Hey, isn't that some sort of [url=http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=1087]demonic duck?[/url]
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]
Yay.. my icy "Freezer BURN" is gonna make its appearance now! ;D
Personally, I think all power animations should at least make some sense. Like burning being, fire, rad, acid, heat ray, ect. and freezing being like Ice, water, air, cold ray ect. But that's just me and I understand some people may like something a bit more out of the box.
Good is not something you are, its something you do.
Just think of the burning DoT of an ice powerset as frostbite, or boiling causing it for water ;-p granted ill give you going the other way is a much harder stretch of the imagination XD
Indeed - the KS Update was pretty clear - the Devs provide us with base powersets with certain qualities - and we overlay fx and animations on top of it to get a power that suits us.
In other words - the devs design a ranged set that does DoT. I select it and now have to decide on the FX/animation:
I could select a liquid fx/animation, and color the liquid green to represent Acid - or I could color it reddish to represent lava, etc.
You can select a thorns/spines/throwing knives/shuriken animation to represent bleedout or poisoned weapons.
Or how about a wind gust animation - color it white for freezer burn or (like in one of the dev examples) brown/grey for a sandstorm-like power.
Or a yellow light beam for a real crispy sunburn
Or you could just go with a flame animation for fire, - and it can go on and on.
The important thing is that the set does DoT - how it looks is just another part of our costume.
At least - that's what I have taken from it - please correct me if I misunderstood. Now all the devs have to do is get cracking on a huge variety of power animations and effects. *cracks whip*
Well the DoT as you describe it is not just Acid or Lava..
Acid would do a bio/chemical damage and lava would do fire damage. In what the devs have clarified. You will not be choosing the damage type of the set. The Acid DoT set will not really represent freezer burn.
At least that's what they have planned......................................................
Crowd Control Enthusiast
If the power looks cold based and the character bio says it's freezer burn, How does it [i]not[/i] represent freezer burn? Why limit yourself to what actual type of damage is being dealt? What matters is that it looks like what the player wants it to be. My wife and I did this in CoH all the time, actually having a suite of animations to pick from will make it even easier.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
Ah yes - I see what you are saying - and while I would PREFER the ability to specify that my particular DoT is doing fire/heat damage (to match the effects/animation), it's not a dealbreaker for me. I suppose it all comes down to what damage types/resistances are in the game and how they are implemented - hopefully the devs can figure out a way to reconcile the difference.
While "dealbreaker" is stronger language than I'd prefer.. it is definitely something I see as "room for improvement"
Crowd Control Enthusiast