We all know one common thing found in City of heroes and villains were robots. Robots were relatively simple enemies to fight. They often sported moderate smashing resistance, high psychic (exception being clockwork) and lethal resistance, and lower-than-normal energy resistance.
What you might NOT know is that at higher levels, the proliferation of smashing and lethal resistances simply went out of control. As a villain, longbow were a constant enemy group through the entire level range of the game. A basic longbow, compared to a normal enemy with no resistances, had about 10-20% smashing and lethal resistance. This resistance scaled with each upgrade in enemy class... When you reached boss level enemies, you were doing, quite literally, half your normal damage. When the Longbow Ballista started showing up around level 35, my lethal damage characters cried as something like an assassin's strike did only a couple hundred damage. 200-300 damage, On an assassin's strike ((yes, with buildup))... A level 15 stalker could do more damage than that!
The worst part was that these ELITE BOSS grade enemies were HARDER to kill than some ARCH VILLAIN enemies. And yes, I do have personal experience with that. However, when I ran the same content with a dark melee character, or endurance-hungry energy melee, the difference was like night and day. Mind you, I understand picking a single enemy group as a point of reference is a poor decision, so I'll expand on enemy groups at high levels with high smashing and lethal resistance...
Malta
Crey
Longbow
Council (robots)
Fifth column (robots)
Arachnos (robots)
Clockwork
Rikti
Arachnoids (moderate resistance, but high regen, making it seem higher)
Circle of thorns (ghosts only)
Paragon police department (especially hard shell ppd and kheldians with their shield up)
Compare this to the list of enemies I can think of that DIDN'T have high resistances to S/L, I can think of...
Arachnos (humanoids only)
Carnival of shadows
Freakshow (except bosses)
Circle of thorns (except ghosts)
Both of these lists may be incomplete, but from what I remember, these are the common high level enemy groups which I personally encountered the most. As many may remember, more enemy groups became easier to kill if you were to switch over to say, energy damage. In fact, a common thing on the stalker forums was that if you weren't either negative energy, or energy damage, you were going to have a REAL hard time leveling up. Especially solo. I can only hope that someone in the enemy design sees this, and can truly understand the pain of trying to use the most common damage types out there.
TLDR: Plz don't make everything in endgame content resist the same damage type. It makes it really annoying to play certain types of characters.
Stalkers don't die: They simply... Disappear.
I'm not going to comment on City of Titans and what its system will be, because I don't know, but in CoX I had no problem with the fact the smashing/lethal were the most common damage types dealt and resisted. The bullet proof vest is far more common than the darkforce proof vest, after all. Not all damage types are equal, and the different powersets took this into account by design, I feel. If Dark was less well resisted, the attacks probably had other drawbacks as compared to the smashing/lethal damage sets. They maybe cost more endo, take longer to animate, don't have as good a secondary effect, take longer to recharge, had less cone/area effects, weren't as enhanceable, or something.
In a world where guns and punching and knives are the most predictably common form of attack, from street thugs to ninjas to giant robots, you'd want some form of protection from that, commonly. Things like Psychic, Dark, etc are far less commonly found (among NPCs, at least) and therefore not a high priority among people looking to protect themselves. Now, for some groups it makes sense to have Psy resist, or dark resist, etc. But those groups are less common, and psy and dark are less common as a damage type to put out (among NPCs).
Also, a lot of pool attacks like Air Superiority, Flurry, Jump Kick, etc were smashing. If it's in a pool, it's available to everybody, and is therefore a little less exotic and less glammy. I would expect, in that case, that it's one of the most easily resisted, and most commonly resisted types.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
My anecdotal experience actually suggested that smashing damage was superior to lethal damage. However, more to the point, I don't recall lethal damage ever really having an advantage over the other sets. Lethal damage's thing was often just a -defense debuff, and if I recall, +10% accuracy on anything with a weapon draw. However, when players slotted a single accuracy SO enhancement, the defense debuff became irrelevant: you were hitting at the max 95% chance at that point anyways with ANY power set ((unless you raised the difficulty)). When compared to say, a slow and recharge debuff, or endurance drain, something like - defense was simply laughable. ESPECIALLY after even the smallest forrays into inventions, and higher overall enhancement percentages.
From a lore perspective: Yes, it's true. The bullet proof vest is likely more common than say, a fireman suit, or an insulated, rubber-lined suit. But that doesn't mean that EVERY enemy group needs to be wearing the latest in bullet-stopping technology. I'm not asking that say, NOBODY be resistant to lethal damage, or smashing damage. But rather, if you're going to have 10 enemy groups that resist lethal damage, you should have just as many that DON'T resist the damage type, for sake of gameplay.
Stalkers don't die: They simply... Disappear.
Good game design matters. I've brought up my concerns.. in a game where being a controller means that you do these damage types and being a melee DPS player means you do those damage types..
I can already see power gamers taking full advantage of choosing those DPS damage types that have fewer resistances. This is a problem in PvE and PvP. Damage type and damage resistance is one of the mechanics that, in my opinion, does NOT need to be regulated by framework.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
How can you say in one sentence that it's a problem then state in the next one that it doesn't need to be "regulated by framework"? If you're admitting it's a problem, then that, I would think, means you feel it needs to be regulated SOMEHOW, so if not by "framework" (whatever that means) then how? And what do you mean by the word "framework"?
The way I see it, if you make damage type an arbitrary choice on the part of the player, you have to make resistances all-encompassing for them to be useful at all. For example, let's assume the game is set up such that, when you make your toon, you can decide he's going to have a flamey-looking set of ranged AoE powers, but they'll do Psionic damage, because that's your backstory, he's a psionic pyromaniac who manifests his psionic powers in the form of fiery-looking attacks. If "Psionic" is a named damage type that you chose when making the toon, and if other people could just as easily have decided to use "cold" or "smashing" or "poison" or "dark" instead, then there is absolutely no predictability or rarity to different damage types, so then all "resist damage" powers are worthless unless they give you "resist everything" or have some way of adapting to the threat at hand on any given day.
At that point, resistance power sets are reduced to like one power, is this what you're suggesting, that we just make the Tanker's inherent "tanker-only" power the one that gives passive damage resist, then maybe a toggle in the power sets or pools someplace that gives you another resist that stacks with that?
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I'm gonna lean towards what Radiac is saying here. Assuming by "framework", you mean a power suite's setup, or base design that is. I can see where unlinking emanation points, or animation styles may be beneficial, but unlinking particle effects, and weapon types from damage types may be pushing things a bit far. All I would ask is for the variety of resistances be spread more thoroughly, so any given choice isn't necessarily the clear-cut superior option in 80% of content.
Stalkers don't die: They simply... Disappear.
Assuming your damage type decision is completely free and arbitrary, and assuming the resistances are all-encompassing, then what difference does it make that you chose "psionic" instead of "fire" in the first place? Isn't the end result the same, in terms of how resistable it's going to be? Is the choice of psionic over fire then just so you can OFFICIALLY pretend your toon is a psychic and not a guy with a flame thrower? I would think building the damage types and resist types into the powers is the only thing that makes them at all meaningful in the first place, in a game-mechinics sense.
If the system ends up being one where you can pick any damage type you want, free of any constraints, but the resistances are categorized and some things aren't easily resistible, why wouldn't everyone just pick the damage type that is resisted the least and then make the power LOOK like whatever they want? E.g. "Yeah, my toon is named Ice Blasterman, but I still chose psionic `cuz, you know, everybody just does. I wouldn't want my powers to be resistible, that's just dumb."
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I always thought it made sense for S/L to be handled the way it was. Superheroes who were just plain tough and could take a tremendous amount of smashing damage but could still be cut or shot were far more common than bullet or bade proof heroes. And even the bullet or blade proof heroes would usually take more damage from, say, a lightening bolt.
Anywho, seemed logical to me and worked out fine in CoH game mechanics. I just always went with the damage type that fit my theme and never felt gimped. Even though one of my mains was straight smashing. Smashing usually did fantastic damage to make up for the common resistance, so it worked out fine.
PS- On further thought, making power types that are less resisted but lower damage vs power types that are commonly resisted but higher damage ads a layer of complexity and variety to the game that I always enjoyed. I had one main--pictured below--who had smashing/fire/energy damage on almost every attack for theme, and it was fun to make that happen and see how it played out in-game.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Having read other posts, I now think I understand (at least partially) how they're going to actually try to work the powers in CoT. I think it will be something like this:
When you go to pick a ranged damage primary set for your Ranger, you can choose between "Ranged Burning" which does a lot of damage over time, "Ranged Slowwing" which does -movement and -recharge to the target, with perhaps one single target damage +immobilization attack, "Ranged Obscurement" which does -accuracy and others. None of these will force you into "fire" or "Ice" or "dark" as your graphics, but those will be options where appropriate. Resist powers will have "Resist Burning" and or "Resist Slowwing" etc instead of "resist fire" and "resist ice".
Okay, suppose for example you pick the "Ranged Burning" set. There might be three different graphics options you can choose from for that: flamey-looking effects, acid-spraying effects, and say, lightning-ish effects. They all animate each attack and it's secondary effects (like DoT) in their own graphical way, and they can all be colored any way you want (within the limits of what's possible in the color palette controls), so that you could choose flame effects but color them black and dark purple, making it look like a dark blast type set, even though it's still "Ranged Burning" and will be resisted/defended against as such. Or you could choose the "lightning" effects but make them red for a "Mu magic" look.
Each different ranged set will have it's own unique attacks in their own order, some might have more single target, others more AoE, some might have longer recharge times others shorter ones, some more endo use, others less, different ranges, etc. Not all of the stuff in the "Ranged Burning" set necessarily has a damage up front plus DoT after, some might be all DoT (like Rain of Fire was in CoX) some might be ancillary powers, like Aim, etc. Where these ancillary things (like Aim) show up in the leveling of the build might be different from one set to another, etc.
Basically, the devs will design the mechanics of the damage sets and resist sets to work well in the game, but the aesthetics and whatnot will be something you can choose, to some extent. Over time I would expect the "Ranged Burning" set to get more different graphics options, like a Radiation option later when they have time to roll it out, etc.
This is just what I feel I can assume from what I've been able to piece together. I could be wrong.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
radiac did u read kickstarter Update 85 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/858157
whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster and when you look into the abyss, the abyss also look into you, -Friedrich
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Yes, and I'm very excited about it. If I recall correctly, each Archetype in CoX got it's own "special thing". Peacebringers got a passive self buff power called "Cosmic Balance", Brutes got one called "Rage" , defenders got a thing called Vigilance, etc. I see the Masteries as a richer, more detailed extension of that idea with level-based upgrades and/or variations you get to pick and choose now and again as you level up. I think it looks awesome. I bet the numbers and exact details of each one will probably require some amount of tweaking in beta and/or after launch, but that's to be expected I think.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
For a superhero mmo, smashing damage being the most common and most resisted makes so much sense.
These are individuals who get beat up often, thrown through walls, survive falls.
For a superhero book, sure. For a superhero cosplay RP, sure.
The second it becomes a game (MMO included) then it needs to focus on parity regardless of the theme (superhero, demons, zombie, et all)
Crowd Control Enthusiast
To JayBezz: Your idea of parity is, I assume, to make all damage types basically the same then? In other words, dark damage won't be any more or less common or more or less resistible than smashing damage? To me that takes away the all of the "gameyness" that exists at the build level and makes the choice of damage powers and resistances totally pointless. I personally want there to be some amount of variance among the different damage types and their resistances to create a sense of build-level strategy and risk/reward. This sort of variance creates matchups that are apt to have a favorable/unfavorable factor to them where the combatants have to look at their own strengths and weaknesses and the opponents' and strategize over how to play to their own strengths and minimize the exposure of their weaknesses. When someone describes their toon to me as "he does fire damage" I don't want my own reaction to that to be "So what? Damage is damage." That's how I look at it.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
+1. I loved damage type actually mattering and factoring into my build strategy and play tactics. One of the things that made CoH more fun than DCUO or Champs.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I will point out that "fire" and"dark" are going to be aesthetic choices in Cot, from what I understand, but there will be damage types, I think , but they will have more general names like "burning damage" which could be fire, or acid, or what have you. Point being there will still be damage types, just not with the kind of names I'm throwing around.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Your assumption is incorrect. Parity =/= equality.
Damage types and resistances SHOULD exist. The game should also not favor one type of damage or damage resistance. That is parity. If 70% of the foes in the game resist physical damage and 30% of foes in the game resist supernatural damage there is a large disparity. This is bad in PvE, but it's abysmal in PvP.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
They compensated for this in CoH by making the more commonly resisted damage types generally do more damage, and the less commonly resisted do less, creating a more complex form of parity. Your idea of different damage types but all with the same percentage of resisting foes in the game is a straight-forward and simple solution, but I personally found the CoH approach to be fun, interesting and engaging.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Aye. The melee classes alone seemed to have half of their potential powersets be pure smashing or lethal damage. And of the rest of the powersets for melee smashing damage was still heavily featured. Blast sets were less likely to focus on lethal with more emphasis on a smashing component, usually 50% smashing. Masterminds learned early to love smashing and lethal. (Incidentally -DEF was very helpful with Merc pets!)
So basically yeah, the players could be counted on to do a TON of smashing/lethal, so that was where the enemies tried to buff their resistances. The game was still easy regardless. If you knew an enemy robot was going to be an issue, then you adjusted your tactics until it wasn't.
I understand that the disparity is/was not an issue for you, but it is for me. I find it insulting to create a character (lets say a sorcerer) and be told by the game "your spells will never have the potential to hurt on the same level as my stick".
Being a good gamemaster is not just about keeping parity in challenges, but also about making sure the rules of the game world are followed. You're basically asking for the gameworld to be stacked for/against builds because of their damage type, and I take issue with that.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Agree to disagree :). But I don't take issue, I just have my preferences. I'd still play the game if they took your rout.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I see what you did there.
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Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Okay, what about the effect that different secondary effects have on game balance? Some powers might do residual DoT, others knockback, others chance of stun, others -acc to target, etc etc. Shouldn't the devs try to balance the amounts of base damage, accuracy, recharge rate, endo cost, cone distance, AoE size, range etc of each power differently based on what kind of "extras" the power has, and based on what the other powers in the set are like? Assuming there's an attempt at balancing all of that, I have to believe that resistances to different things will be less important to a given build in some cases and more important in other cases.
From what I've read on this website, taking the example if "Burning damage" that's been floated in other posts, let's say you make your toon a "burning damage" Ranger, but you decide to use the "flamey looking" animations and color them pink and light blue to reflect the fact that your toon is really shooting magical chaos energy at the target. Magical chaos energy isn't even a damage type, so that's a purely aesthetic choice that doesn't affect the resistance issue, but the fact that you took the "burning" set means you will get multiple powers in your primary set that do ranged damage with added DoT as their "extra". That choice of "the set that does DoT" defines you as a "burning" damage dealer, and youj can then expect that your damage will be resisted by people who have powers that give them "Resist Burning". The same would be true if you chose to color the flames black and call it "dark fire from the negative energy plane" or something.
So in the sense that the aesthetics can be completely divorced from the resistances, they've achieved "parity" of a sort in so far as the flavor that you chose for your character has no real effect on things like damage output and resistances, but the nuts and bolts mechanics of the powerset you chose does. The "dark" or "chaos magic" is just a skin you put ion it, but it's the same powerrset, mechanically, so it will play the same versus different resistances regardless.
I think that's what they're planning on doing, and it seems good to me.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
If damage type is as unlinked as you suggest, then instead of looking at Smashing, lethal, fire, ice, etc damage and resistance, resistances be more generalized like... Wounding, Bruising, Burning, and slowing? I suppose if damage types are more generalized like that, it's easier to vary up the resistances we see in Mobs, and creates a more interesting and balanced gameplay scenario. I'm trying to wrap my head around it a bit, but we'll know more later on I suppose.
Stalkers don't die: They simply... Disappear.
What's even more confusing though is that taking a resistance set like "Resist Burning" may or may not actually apply any resistance to the actual DoT that the burning powers do to you (it might only apply to the base damage that the burning blast attack does, not the DoT part). Having "Resist Stunning Damage" might only cause you to take, say, 50% less damage from attacks from the "Stunning set' but might NOT actually prevent you from being stunned ever (you'd need some form of mez protection for that, which could require a completely different "Resist status effects" power). Actually resisting getting Knocked Back from the "Knockback Set" blast powers might require separate KB protection that your "Resist Knockback Damage" power doesn't give you, or doesn't give you ENOUGH of all by itself, thus causing you to want something like a Zephyr +4 KB Protection proc in your Fly power, etc.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
God this is making me miss dickering around on Mids. I had my builds so perfectly constructed for what I wanted. I always had a ghetto build for the mean time till I got ahold of the IO's I really wanted.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
IIRC, Lethal was slashing renamed (compare vs. smashing). I guessed it was to make the game seem less nasty.
Anyway, the resistance of robots and other metal things to slashing is rather standard for game design. Suddenly it makes more sense.
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
Or to keep it from sounding Dr. Seuss-like?
For damage you have smashing,
And then there is slashing,
And fire and toxic and psi.
There's cold from the ice,
Energy of two types...
Each such a fun way to die.
Spurn all ye kindle.