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Sorry, when you mentioned the “source”
Being telepathic or fear based those made me
Think of the aesthetic applications rather than the mechanical GUI aspects.
As said, you will see a charm icon on your icon indicators within the GUI, and there will be a specific fix on the character.
The only part not immediately imparted is which specific powers are affected.
Once we go hat route, both player and npc will ever use their charmed powers. Thebkearned behaviornis “I see the charm icon on power x and y” I won’t use those. The learning AI will do the same. Making the non-binary behavior almost match that of the Concentration effects.
If this doesn’t work out well in testing we can change it to provide this info, the result though will lessen the usefulness of charm effects.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
This...effect, not being able to defend against it (read: with some kind of breaker for it), not knowing it has happened because it is "disguised", and being forced to play a way that the developers deem WE must play (IE: attack allies, or worse, no allies around....CIVILIAN INNOCENTS). Yeah...this is something really cool, fun, and engaging....NOT. At NO TIME should a player lose complete control of their character and be FORCED to attack teammates or innocent civilians because of Charmed. This...is...almost a non-starter for me concerning this game.
You've offhandedly stated, oh there is this, that, and the other to "possibly" allow you to NOT be influenced in this way. I'm sorry, that doesn't cut it in my book. So now, based on this power, you want to MAKE US ("intentionally drive behavior) to do things that are diametrically opposed to our character's alignment as Super Heroes.
So, in common language not hidden by flowery statements set up to disguise the truth behind this power, when charmed we have no control of our character and to make sure we do not know it (UNTIL after weeks of play), we will attack everyone but the enemy including allies and most importantly, CIVILIANS. Please, do not tell me that will not happen, if we are 'forced' to attack allies, civilians are active targets during the duration of this "charmed stun-loss of controlled character."
Bad design, bad idea, and ridiculous to implement when developers dictate to us how to play. Yeah...the more I think about it...the more I believe this will keep me paying and playing this game. You and the developers need to rethink this and come up with a far better method of recognizing being controlled and thwarting this with some kind of breaker that we can use when we recognize this has happened. Otherwise, you're going to have Super Heroes killing innocence civilians when one is NOT in a party with allies.
1. All
Control effects are motivated by having: Defense vs Controls or Resistance marching the damage type of the control. There will also be a specific type of Reserve called Break Out to counter being controlled.
2. Charm or confuse effects have been in gaming for multiple decades wresting control of the player character away from the player. That is the nature of this type of mez.
We are proving a non-binary version of this where low magnitude and / or mitigated charm effects only work for those affected but not all powers until sufficient stacked charms affect the target.
3. The driven behavior is formthrnpmayer to do their best to not use the charmed powers, but being “partially charmed” is intended to simulate the act of “confusion” where the affected target might do something intentional.
To state that this opposes the chosen players alignment - in our system doesn’t apply to Alignment - those are selected choices at key times. But assuming you mean opposing the players’ applied moral outlook of their character - then yes, a charmed player character can heal an enemy or harm a friend. Again, this is nothing new to gaming and the player can and will have options to mitigate such effects.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I don't know how many times I have to keep saying this but if this game imposes "Charm effects" on PCs as often as CoH did it will amount to about [color=red]10 minutes worth in roughly 10,000+ HOURS worth of playing[/color]. If you honestly can't tolerate a uniquely special effect against your characters that's going to be [b]that rare[/b] and are willing to be all butthurt about it enough that you'd threaten to not want to play CoT because of this one little issue then you obviously don't have enough to worry about in real life. Your collective whining about this is pathetic.
Man up and let your character(s) get Confused/Charmed every once in while. It's not the end of the freaking world here...
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Based on this bullshit here, you all can keep this game. I won't be party to any community that is as vile as this pathetic excuse of a member. Great job. You've run off a potential paying customer...one that conceivably spend a few thousands of dollars a year on this game. BTW smart ass, I played COH from 6 months after it was released until the day they closed the doors. But you don't care, you're just another vile trap.
Over-react much? Wow. Because they are going to throw in a confusion effect...like every game ever...you are running away screaming. It's extremely immature to judge a community by a single member, no matter who that member is.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
Only chiming in because I’ve seen more negative reaction than positive...
I can see the logic behind not being able to tell if a player is charmed or not. I also like the idea, and find it really exciting! It makes the whole situation more... real? I mean, I try to look at it from this perspective:
We are playing a superhero based game. In this game, we are playing as the character, not the narrator or the reader. Superheroes (unless they have powers / items that change this) do not get to know everything that’s going on. If this were their first time against an opponent that had “mind control” abilities, then how would they know about those abilities? Or if they were in the heat of battle, how would they know that something has happened? They don’t get to see the box at the top of the panel that says “Then their mind was controlled!” No, instead they are the victims of these charm effects. Sometimes heroes do bad things - for various reasons but in this case specifically - because they were under the influence of someone else’s powers. Even the most moral of heroes, that said “I will never harm humanity,” have been made to do things against their code of ethics and morals. Then the next episode or part of the series gets to be about how that hero makes amends for their actions.
The game we are a part of the forums for, and are anxious to experience, is City of Titans. Not City of Omnipotent Beings. Sure, someone could be trying to go that route as a background, but then to fulfil that part they’d need to do extensive out-of-game research so that they did know everything, and then they could be prepared for any instance of charm before it happened (and so, would be prepared to avoid the effects to the best of their ability).
Anyway, I’m for the decision to have charm effects work this way. It’s going to help me feel like I am the character, instead of some all-knowing observer hat happens to get to control the abilities of some super powered being.
This! [size=18]Is![/size] [size=20][b]TITAN CITY![/b][/size]
If you had actually played CoH as long as you claimed then you should know how much of a NON-ISSUE this is.
Man, if you're going to "rage-quit" from a game you were both "planning on spending a few thousand a year on" AND that you haven't even played yet to know whether this one little minor thing is going to actually bother you or not then I'm not sure you're the kind of "folk" we'd collectively want around here anyway. *shrugs*
Why don't you just take a few deep breaths, think about how silly you're being here and go ahead and play this nice game that the folks at MWM are making for you when it arrives. If it makes you feel better I promise you that you won't ever have to team up with me in game...
Yeah but that "member" in question is me so even I would cut Ghost-Spectre a tiny bit of slack for that. ;)
P.S. BTW I'm Lothic, a vile, pathetic excuse of a member of the CoT community since October 2013. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I do like the idea of no GUI icon telling the charmed player that his or her character has been charmed at all.
Then when certain powers are attempted the charmer cons green (or whatever friendly identification will be in the game) instead of red, and friendlies con red instead of green; that should be all the notification that's needed. The idea here, as Tannim pointed out and several others have picked up upon, is [b]learned behavior[/b]. Those first few times we get charmed should be a confusing mess until we figure out what happened. The lowest level charmers should have some sort of obvious tell or maybe some NPC should warn us about them first. This way less skilled players and newbies to the genre aren't faced with a mechanic they have trouble grasping.
Because I will be the first to state that I found the idea of only certain powers being affected by charm while others aren't to be hard to grasp. How come my character isn't charmed but one of his powers is? But that's the wrong way to look at it. In order for it to make sense to me, I had to consider that the charm attack placed a mental force upon the target character that lasts until the end of the charm's duration. The target character then engages in a contest of wills against this attacking force for the duration. The easier powers are to cast, the less they distract from this contest. As a target character attempts to cast more complicated powers, however, they distract too much and the character loses the contest of wills while attempting to cast those powers. But that doesn't mean the contest is over, because the character is still contesting throughout the duration and can revert to simpler powers and regain his volition. Once I framed it this way, it all made more sense to me.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
If you’re going to throw a tantrum (and yes, that’s all this is) over something this minor then you’d never be satisfied anyway. I think there was nothing lost here.
As for obfuscation being a “bad design choice” (as I saw earlier), well that’s just silly. Obfuscation is an essential part of game design. Without obfuscation, you can’t have stealth. You have to immediately give the answer to all puzzles. You can’t have map exploration.
Yes, if done wrong it’s irritating and frustrating. But you can’t just hyperbolically declare that no game should ever hide anything from the player. That’s just flat-out ridiculous.
I like the novel approach that MWM is taking. They’re making it a gamble when you’re charmed. And it’s an informed gamble; you know that the higher the rank of power the more likely it’s going to go all wonky. I’m really looking forward to seeing it in action. I like the surprise and uncertainty.
I get that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea and I understand that it might not sound very good, especially when you’re reading about it and not actually watching how it works. It’s new and kind of weird. But people don’t need to get hysterical about it.
[youtube]FONN-0uoTHI[/youtube]
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]
I hope all those nay sayers never play the yugioh card game. Some cards remain face down on the field so you don't know what they are, and you can't see your opponent's hand, either. Or just look through the opponent's deck.
Heck some cards, some of my personal favorites, also dictate what your opponent attacks.
I guess though, according to these people that's just all bad design. And nothing should be hidden in any game ever. And nothing should have you lose control of your character ever, no stuns, no cutscenes, no automatic movement, no nothing.
How wrong I was all this time.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
The difference between what is being discussed here and Yu Gi Oh, is that the players whose action you are dictating know that you are doing so and what card allows you to do so. The rest of your post here is, if I recall my logical fallacies correctly, [i]reductio ad absurdum[/i].
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]
Superheroes and supervillains get charmed one day and the other too, and they end up doing things they don't want to. It's so common that when some superhero is simply raging instead of being mind-controlled, the teammates think about the mind-control as first probable cause (I can think that pretty much all comics characters were mentally forced to destroy the city or attack an innocent many and many times).
In games and mmorpgs the loss of control is even too present (which is probably the reason the Ghost-Spectre person is raging, he is sick of getting perma-stun-locked in pvp games I guess), but Tennim said it won't happen here or anyway you will have ways to mitigate that if you want, and that's visible already on the other effects and how those work in CoT (which is very different from other mmorpgs in most cases).
But charm is... charm, like Lothic said it will be probably a rare occurrence, an exception to the rule since the rest of the effects in CoT are made so that you retain as much control as possible.
A psionic attack must force you to do something, somebody will control your mind. There is no way around that, if you change it so that you retain control of your character than it's not mind-control anymore but it becomes something else (and you can't do a superhero game without mind-control in the long list of available powers).
Point is you go to attack and you have no way of knowing if it will go through as intended.
Much like the charm effect.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Sure Lothic, but what I said was less about charm specifically and more about communicating with the player. If a player is hit by charm (or anything else) and they understand what is happening, they are going to have more fun. They are going to, as you said yourself, figure it out and play around it. That is the whole point.
The goal is to make that a smooth process by conveying information effectively to the player. The worse the game is at conveying information in a manner that is intuitive, the more harsh any learning curve is going to be, regardless of how difficult the actual mechanics are.
Learning to drive a car or ride a bike is pretty normal, but it gets a whole lot harder when you blindfold someone.
edit: woops seems a whole page or more of stuff happened between when I last looked at this thread and actually posted.
I think its a moot point. You'll know what kind of mez is affecting you within a few seconds; as soon as you try to move/use an action. If your attack works but not on the intended target, there are only a few options. Either you are charmed, taunted, feared, or aversed (Aversion?). Even then it will be [b]easy[/b] to know which it is; basically whoever is on the receiving end of your attack. If your charmed it might be an ally (depending on the power), taunted it might be the beefcake tanker when you had the healer targeted, feared it will be a different enemy than the one that feared you, etc. At least that is my understanding.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
Sure, but that just proves my point. Either way does, really. If the player has learned how to deal with the CC then it simply doesn't work on them (they take their hands off the controls) which the devs stated was the opposite of their goal.
If they can't or don't learn how to deal with it, the result is also not what the devs said they wanted. That is more of an issue with information conveyance in general.
I get that non binary controls are a design goal but I'm not sure this specific implementation is going to accomplish the goals they have stated.
You could still have charm fit this non binary paradigm without having charm fall into this trap. Have your cake and eat it too. Have charm take total control of the target as it does in other games, but only for the use of the specific powers that are affected and only for as long as it takes to use those powers. Since the way controls are planned to work in CoT only a few powers at a time will be hit by any control effect, have your character taken over just to use those and then control is given back. You could also have a built in cooldown between charmed power useage to give the player a chance to fight a bit and stop charm from being "instantly blow all big cooldowns in one alpha strike". A nice way to communicate this to the player, and very thematic, is some kind of "struggle against the control" brief animation when it hits, you lose control for a second, struggle, regain control. These animations can be very brief and considered part of the control.
This removes the "players take hands off keyboard" issue and still keeps the main stated design goals.
Yea, I see what you are saying, but the way the powers are designed that wouldn't work. I don't remember the official terminology but every power has a 'charm resistance rating', so depending on how charmed you you will determine which of your powers are effectively charmed as well. I personally like this style because it gives actual value to the player's resistance. You see this sometimes in comics/shows when someone is 'charmed' but they resist enough to wrest control of their voice and can speak as themselves despite having lost control of their body. Think of the final battle of Zaknafein and Drizzt, if you are familiar with that series.
Granted, I would be just as happy if they determined, after testing, that this wasn't the best way to do it and decided to change it more to WoW mechanics where you lost control of your character and played, effectively, as AI for a few seconds. Either way, this isn't a new game mechanic and, as Lothic has mentioned many times, this isn't going to effect much of your actual game play time...so I'll be happy no matter what way they go. But I especially like how they currently have planned.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
The number of times my characters were confused in CoH was exceedingly rare and I *liked* it when it happened. It was novel, it was an interesting threat change-of-pace for the team to react to. Realistically you'd only toss a single attack or two before realizing your mad button-pushing was hitting teammates not opponents
I'm baffled how someone could draw a line in the sand over something so trivial. We "lost control" of characters any time we went under a status effect - couldn't activate powers from being held, couldn't move from being immobilized, bounced around from ice slick or hurricane, etc etc etc. If we were defeated we dropped to the ground. Were any of these events show-stoppers?
I'm on-board for what Tannim has been describing for us and might be of the camp of wanting even more of it than they are planning. Wait and see of course but nothing so far that has be ready to abandon ship!
That is how it will work when the target is fully charmed.
If the non-binary effect was shortened time frames of charm, that is still a binary effect - being fully charmed.
The suggestion for charmed powers to be AI driven during the activation time of the power and then control is given back is problematic in multiple ways:
It would be exceedingly difficult to have the target be controlled by both the player and AI at the same time. That is, the coding would be just insane to try and make work - if it could be done at all. You are talking about having the player controller being active along with an actor meant to take over the player controller of the character at the same time - which is not how a anything in the engine is designed and setting up a proprietary control ssystem like that would require a massive effort for just one effect (and that is if it could be done).
Secondly, players could queue powers to activate before the charmed AI controller powers could be triggered. We’d have to figure out a way to prevent queueing from working for a charmed power to take priority over the queued power - which is again not how the queue coding works.
Thirdly, it is one thing too have a charmed power direct towards an unintended target, it is another to literally wrest all control away from the player during the activation of the power to let the character be controlled by AI.
Right now, a charmed power of activated by the player will help the originator of the charm effect. The character itself won’t move (unless it is a lunge effect).
If the power is Melee and the target is out of range it will behave like any Melee power trying to be used out of range. If the AI took over it would attempt to move the character to the target to use the Melee attack.
The idea is similar but takes things a few steps further than our current design and would most likely result in even more frustration.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I remember being confused a couple of times over the years and I just thought it was amusing more than anything else.
That makes a lot of sense. Having charm distinctly interact with powers and not movement or aiming or anything else is still very powerful but is much less powerful than traditional mind control charm. This does mean that melee tanks would be really powerful against charming enemies since they could stand out in front of their team out of melee range and present little danger when charmed. I'm sure players could come up with even better tactics than that to work around it. That further points out the whole "players can easily play around it if they understand it" point I was making though.
As with everything else in the game it will be immediately obvious once people can see it for themselves. I'm sure the devs have put more thought into it than the few seconds it takes to write an off the cuff forum post. I'm eager to see everything in action when we get the chance.
I'd like to know what this is. Because to me, charm has always been about making someone think you are a close friend or ally. And a powerful enough charm could make a target side against his own friends and allies if they attack the charmer. But I never associated charm with mind control or taking over the target's actions.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Honestly? Charming doesn't really seem that bad, I mean the Starro raid in DCUO had charming and that was one of the few raids that was actually fun. I think of it as more of a hold that deals damage to your allies.
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]
I think of the old school D&D spell which does make someone a friend/ally. To me that’s old school “charm”. In MMOs I have seen it portrayed two ways... When used by a PC against an NPC, it turns them into a temporary pet. When used by an NPC against a PC, or PC against a PC, it turns the PC temporarily into an NPC who attacks their allies until it wears off.
The “turn an NPC into a pet” is pretty much mind control because you direct their actions.
I think the reason that charm in MMO have heretofore been implemented as puppetry is because that's the only way an MMO could do it until now. Seriously, how else would one get across the idea that a target has been charmed if you don't make them attack your enemies. I think it assumes that the charm connects and the target attempts to fulfill a suggestion to "defend me."
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
There are 2 ways we could set up handling a charmed target. It just takes a bit more work then we would be ready for by launch. Who knows knows we may have a version of it in the future.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
You could probably make charm something where you can't target the charmer, and your allies come up as enemies so that you can only attack the charmer through AoE's but AoE's are riskier on a team
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]
You could call one power “charm” and the other “hex” to differentiate them from another (unless hexing exists in another form already). And add the hex power later.
The way charm works now is that we can only target those hostile to the charmer, according to the writeup.
I think it would tremendous if we combined Charm with the kind of targeting shift we see with the Taunt ability. To wit, when a character tries to activate a charmed power, the character's selected target switches to a (random?) target hostile to the charmer. If there is no other target hostile to the charmer, then the character's selected target switches to himself and any attack that would have activated fizzles (unless it is a power that can actually target self).
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
The other method is quite more dynamic than that!
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I would much rather just have my character temporarily controlled.
I already have the illusion of control in my every day life, I dont need to see that frustration in the things I do to relax.
Rez, pls
[img]https://i.imgur.com/26pBVBG.png[/img]
([i]Currently developing the Sapphire 7 Initiative[/i])
I just had this fun idea on how to shoot down Aether Pirate ships... or at the very least to really annoy their crews.
That brings back memories of Hellions and getting 'implanted' into and the dangling from the ceiling. xD
Hey, if I see you in a PvP zone attacking someone on my side... yeah sorry, not sorry, you are toast.
Say Metrics again. Say Metrics again. And I dare you... I double dare you, mother[b]BLEEP[/b]. Say Metrics One. More. Goddamn. Time. =P
I just need to know: How on Cthulhu's Green Earth did this happen?
You've got to hit two keys simultaneously to get a [, and none of those is near the e.
[img]https://media.giphy.com/media/12lV980pEpWM9i/giphy.gif[/img]
I get the impression that having you as an uncle is kinda unhealthy. =P
Y'know... just out of spite I'm gonna use my second Kickstarter account to reserve and block the GCH Ghost-Spectre.
BWAHAHA!!1
Spoiler: I won't. Got other plans.
But I do like the idea...
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_HUdf89hI8]Send out your signal, call in your hero
I kidnapped his lady, now his power's are zero.
[/url]
While that might be a "better" outcome I just don't see any good way to do it while keeping to the non-binary nature of CC. Your previous post of a possible implementation just wouldn't work.
If we're going with non binary for charm just use effects leading up to it. You start getting sluggish (slow), then you cant move (rooted), then you get temp controlled for a few seconds (charm) before breaking the control.
A movement debuff (which is part of s hold) does not affect powers which is what all other no -binary effects do.
It also doesn’t make sense that the movement debuff results in rioting before the charm takes effect and then you have a rooted, charmed target that unless it has ranged attacks, can’t do anything. In the pve environment it might as well be a hold. Part of the intent of charm is that the target can actually fight for the charmer.
The “few seconds part” also neglects how the system is set up for how durtation is determined.
If the non-binary Control doesn’t affect powers, all you have is a debuff of some sort which many other powers including controls already have. In order for charm to be a non-binary Control, it has to affect powers in some manner. Otherwise you don’t have a non-binary Control, you have a debuff resulting in a binary control.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Thats all fair enough but breaking from the non binary for charm seems to fit better than a frustrating experience.
To keep non binary, how about having early levels of Charm have percentage of not activating a power on input, with an activated mssg and small .4 cooldown before you can attempt it again, showing youre having trouble acting as normal, and then as you get higher the change of non activation gets higher, until you're fully charmed?
Im literally JUST a consumer in this interaction, and I dont have the vision or the knowledge of how to create the implementation, but I can tell you AS a consumer, that Id rather just not do anything for that time than risk the backlash that will happen when I misguessed an ability and get flamed in chat for it. No thank you, I really dont want that experience.
Not activating a power is under Concentration. Which means the full result is not being able to activate any powers.
Charm is under Volution which tells powers they can not be used against the originator in some manner. Aversion is the base version powers can’t target the originator.
Fear is powers can’t be used near originator.
Charm is powers work to help the originator in some manner.
No matter what we do - even if we tell you what powers are charmed, that will always be the result.
The point in not showing which powers is to inteiojnally cause that form of confusion. Making relying on lower tier powers safer and the higher tiers more of a risk resulting in unintended consequences.
Anyone dealing with enemies using charm effects all face the same risk.
This is where play and feedback during testing will be necessary. If a system or mechanic results in a largely negative experience (other than I don’t like it because I don’t like mez as an excuse). But if something causes overly averse social repurcussions we will look tonaddress the issue.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I was thinking about this possibility: the charm may last less if you -controlled guy- hit a friend? If you don't... you'll wait much more doing nothing (it's like you're wasting your time resisting the charm). Like a choice for the player, either "do nothing" for long or "attack a friend" and be free.
Hmm. Interesting idea...but I think it would have to be more complex than that. We know everyone will have a basic melee and ranged attack that does minimal damage...if we just had to hit the tank with that to get freed I feel like that would be counterproductive to its purpose.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
Well you do have choices. Not that choice but others. Your choices are:
1) Do nothing and wait out the effect. You’ve just voluntarily turned charm into a stun. Probably not a wise choice but it’s a choice.
2) Be conservative and use low-ranking powers. You’re unlikely to attack an ally with these so you can continue to fight, if at a limited capacity. You’ve voluntarily turned it into a sort of “silence” ability or ability lock (for lack of a better term).
3) Just act normally and take your chances. This might work. Let’s say you have a somewhat powerful attack on a fast cooldown. Try it once; if it hits an ally then don’t use it again. If not, you can spam it until the charm wears off.
I don’t recommend using that long-cooldown nuke while charmed. You might just cripple or kill an ally and you’ll lose access to it after the charm wears off.
I like a challenge that forces you to strategize. This is why I like these proposed charm mechanics.
4. Pop this game's equivalent of a break free
5. Ask a support hero to hit you with something that reduces Mez/buffs your mezz resistances
6. Ensure that your heroes always have something that can do that on themselves.
Lots of options.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
You definitely have a grasp of the mechanics, [i][b]Atama[/b][/i]!
It will undoubtedly take some time for players to fully grasp the concept. It is so easy to think that if a character is "charmed" that it affects the character as a whole. But that's binary.
Some people may think that non-binary refers to the duration of the control effects. And while that is true, it doesn't stop there. The non-binary nature of controls means that none, some, or all of a character's powers are affected. It may even be possible that a character can be subject to a charm attack and not have any powers affected. (remember that charm attacks have a [i]control effect value[/i] that reduces the target's [i]volition[/i], and you won't know how many stacked charm attacks will reduce your volition below the willpower threshold of each power you have)
This controls philosophy where powers are affected individually is a pretty significant paradigm shift and we expect it will take some time for it to fully sink in with the player-base. Luckily, those of you who are here in these forums have plenty of time to grasp it and discuss it; and your participation may even help shape the final product.
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I rather like the implementation of charm as it's been described here. Making controls non binary, but charm the exception just seems inelegant. If charm is going to be non binary, there's only so many ways of having a sliding scale of effect.
Yes, you could have a steadily increasing chance than any power you activate treats friends as foes and visa versa, but that actually allows less mitigation through play style than the implementation described, because you can't mitigate the chance of charm 'kicking in' by using lower tier powers.
You could have a version where you have cycles of a few seconds duration and for each cycle the control 'rolls' against the current level of charm. If successful you lose control of your character for that cycle. At full charm you lose control until the intensity drops or the duration finishes. That actually reflects 'struggling for control' quite well, and that scenario is a comic staple, but again I think it would be incredibly annoying to experience. Trying to time activating a tactically appropriate power for just as you regain control, then it fails because you put the power on cooldown during the last 'controlled cycle' then you do activate it but the tactical environment has shifted and it's not the power you'd now prefer. That kind of thing.
The described implementation allows players to pick a counter strategy, as Atama neatly describes above, balancing risk against reward. This gives the player agency without trivialising the control effect.
There is a minor opportunity for griefing, because you can actually increase the risk to your team by firing nukes when moderately charmed, but I don't think it's a vastly greater risk than just playing badly against regular opponents. Yes you'd be actively hurting your allies, rather than just failing to perform your role, but I don't think the actual mechanical impact would be vastly different. I'm sure players that repeatedly reach for the top tier AOE when charmed will swiftly have the mechanic explained to them by their team mates. If they still insist on the behaviour, they'll probably find themselves unwelcome on teams fighting charming foes.
Sounds like an interesting mechanic, keep up the good work!
Lower tier powers have less chance of being affected by control effects. So as I understand it you -can- mitigate the effects by using lower tier powers.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
New Dev Sighting!!!!
Welcome aboard, Treed! ^_^
Atama's list of options and your response to them gives me hope that in the event one of my characters runs into a Charmer, I'll have enough options to retain my sense of agency.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Thank you!
Of all the successors, this is the one I am most hopeful for; so I was quite happy to be chosen to join the team. There is so much more to share that will knock your collective socks off! I can't wait to tell you all about it... but where's the fun in that?
All in due time.
[color=#5d478b][i]Bringing City of Titans to all the people.[/i][/color]
[color=red]Public Relations Team[/color]
An interesting read. Good to know controls won't be a pure binary system as they so often are in MMOs - I still remember the annoyance I felt after the "enemies now outrange your snipes" nerfs; being told that being safe was unbalanced then watching controllers stand around as their pets destroyed entire groups of held stuff at high speed.
The Control Stats and Willpower leave me wondering a few things though. First off, will higher level/tier automatically mean higher willpower requirement? While it makes sense for a long-range precision shot to be disabled easily, one could also point to comic books for an easy argument that the long cooldown "nukes" might be the surest way to get out of a hold. This also brings the possibility that power could be temporarily 'burnt out' and suffer longer recharge or other penalties for a bit in exchange for breaking through when 'partially affected' or the like.
It doesn't ONLY have to be Binary-but-for-every-power.
Will all archetypes have a reasonable amount of Control-HP, varying across the individual control types? I imagine the pre-defiance2.0 blaster problem won't be repeated here, but, for example, is a Stalwart more likely to commit Friendly-Fire with other melees in the fray but nigh-impossible to scare off by default, while a Ranger's easily immobilized but still shoots straight when dead drunk?
Will abilities like drains, slows (the all-stats kind not the movement kind) and other effects play off the existing four stats, or will they instead work off defense and resistance like knockback is said to?
And speaking of knockback, will punting grey minions over buildings still be a thing? There was fun to be had in Atlas Park back then.
Wouldn't it be a lot easier for players to come to grips with a more complicated system if the actual information related to it was easily available to them? I don't necessarily mean here, now, in the forums. Once the game is in a state that people are going to be getting their hands on early gameplay and testing it is when it will come up.
If devs are concerned about learning curve and perception then logically those very issues shouldn't be ignored.
It doesn't have to be conveyed by spreadsheets and walls of text. Small visual and audio cues are a great way of announcing important information to players.
Every Arxhetype has the same “stat” value.
The basic rule of thumb is the higher the power tier, the higher the Willpower, the more easily it can be affected by a control. However there are some exceptions to this where certain powers may have a modified Willpower.
The difference between a Stalwart and a Ranger will come from the amount of Protections available to each. With Peotections, a Stalwart will be harder to fully control compared to a Ranger.
Other debuffs dirextly affect the effect targeted by the debuff. These again can be mitigated by Protections.
There will be indicators for many control effects. All of them will provide an icon on the UI when applied.
Those that directlyndisable Powers such as Concentration controls will “grey out” your power icons in the power tray.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Well same base stat is something already, but how meaningful will the protections - or perhaps more importantly lack thereof for the squishier folks - be?
Like, if you could give us the ballpark here, since we're all curious as to how it will actually play out. Say I'm a Ranger:
Does a single hold from a single minion two levels under me completely shut me down (Pre-2.0 Blasters) until I pop a breakfree?
Does a single hold from a single minion two levels under me lock out my highest willpower abilities instead? (if so then a group with their Lt might mean fully offlined)
What about a 'lieutenant' or a Boss?
Again but with defenses up:
Can a group of minions hitting me with 2, maybe 3 chunks of a mezz significantly debilitate me, or is it the threshold before I even start being affected with defenses on?
Do defenses only increase the buffer before they start to work or does it also reduce the damage to your willpower, making it longer to affect an increasing amount of your powers? Can I partially shrug off some Archvillain's primary mez? Can an Enforcer?
Can a Stalwart or Enforcer wade into battle with an Control-focused Archvillain and its Mezz-happy summons and just beat on it willy-nilly, never remembering controls are even a thing since last time he ever saw one affecting somewhere back the 20s? (hopefully not)
How much control and defenses are we thinking about here, basically.
They can't tell us that. Not even ballpark figures. This still has to be tested before any numbers are nailed down.
I'm sure they [i]know[/i] what they want, but real time testing with larger and more diverse groups is needed. Beta testing. Which won't start until later this year.
Yeah getting into numbers and trying to explain the complexity of game play is not conducive to the experience of playing .
How well a Ranger can mitigate against controls can. Very from Mastery Powers, Secondary, and Tertiary selections. It can also vary depending on hit rolls.
When you look at Protections and raking with controls here is a basic break down:
Evasion helps avoid attacks.
Defense vs Controls will reduce effects by the Defense style vs the style of the attack (Melee, Ranged, AoE)
Resistance: will reduce effects based on their Type (physical, energy, exotic).
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
This seems the best place to add this comment. I was thinking about how the likely real life source of mythological "Petrification" associated with creatures like basilisks, Medusa, etc., is just petrifying fear. Then that got me thinking about the non-binary control effects in City of Titans. So, here I am with an idea. The current effect of fear is that affected powers can not be used near the source of that fear. So a low powered fear effect would keep someone from using their most potent ability, while a stronger fear could affect all but the most basic abilities. I think it would be interesting if an overwhelming fear effect could affect not just abilities, but movement as well. Thus the overkill effect of Fear would essentially be petrification.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Note that limit of actions AND movement is the functional equivalent to a Hold (can't move, can't do things).
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Yep. It seems as if Hold both restricts movement and power function. So does disorient and so does sleep. There is certainly room for overlap. Besides, the petrification effect I'm suggesting only occurs when the fear is overwhelming, as in beyond even the full effects. I don't think a non-binary movement reduction is in keeping with Fear, so I wouldn't want a slowing effect to be part of it as it would for hold, as an example. I'd just like the momentary rooting in place that happens during eyeball-popping, waste-evacuation-level fear.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
I recall, with a small fondness, the Target-limiting effect of Taunt. Yes, annoying, when applied to You (or Me), but useful for a Tank defending his Squishies.
Yes, I hear the PVP crowd screaming some combination of Unrealistic and Unfair.
In other games, I have tried to play a 'Tank' and found the extra defense unuseful without some aggro-attracting mechanic, in which case it's simply easier to concentrate on DPS and be a 'Scrapper'.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Disorient (in City of Heroes) = action prevention plus involuntary (slow) movement
Sleep (in City of Heroes) = action prevention plus movement prevention but "fragile" in that effect can be broken (usually by incoming damage)
To be fair, there are two kinds of FEAR.
The "petrified" rooted to the spot, immobilized and paralyzed, unable to act (sometimes unable to even scream) kind of FEAR.
The RUN FOR YOUR LIFE(!) just get out of there(!) kind where the Fight or Flight response goes all in on fleeing the source of the FEAR.
[youtube]YWTJ8iZr7ro[/youtube]
From a gaming perspective, it would be interesting (as a Player) to have the OPTION of which kind of Fear effect you're throwing at $Targets ... because just like with Knockback/Knockdown, sometimes you want the $Targets to stay put right where they are, and at other times you want them to flee (and not attack for a while) so you can regroup and recover and concentrate your firepower on whatever [i]hasn't fled[/i] from your Fear effect.
Note that the "RUN AWAY!" effect of Fear could be modeled as an uncontrolled movement (much like how Disorient enforces uncontrolled movement), except that instead of simply staggering around slowly, the uncontrolled movement is instead at Sprint speeds to flee the area (in FEAR).
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
We're talking about City of Titans. Are you suggesting City of Titans should behave like City of Heroes or did you just not remember what [url=https://cityoftitans.com/content/how-it-works-control-mechanics]this update[/url] (referenced in the OP) said?
I don't think the person instilling fear really should have any control over how the person feared reacts to it. Fight or flight being what it is, seems to be a very individual reaction.
I REALLY like this. I hope Tannim222 is paying attention. I'll tell you why.
Have you ever come across a squirrel in the middle of the road? It will startle and for a brief moment not know which way to go. It will turn one way, reconsider, turn another and eventually make up its mind and skedaddle. Now extrapolate to a combat situation in City of Titans. If you instill a fear effect on your opponent, that opponent should suffer a mild form of disorient (as you suggest) as well as the currently existing impeding of powers. The effect this will result in is the [u]character[/u] exhibiting the outward signs of not knowing which way to go even if the [u]player[/u] is clear-headed. So the clear-headed [u]player[/u] may even impose their own root-in-place reaction to deal with that indecision exhibited by their [u]character[/u]. So please disregard my earlier suggestion about mimicking "petrification" because imposing disorient may make the players self-simulate petrification upon themselves. Using disorient is a genius suggestion because with one simple mechanic you get to emulate the effects of fight, flight, panic-induced indecision, and petrification; and make it all individualized based upon how the [u]player[/u] reacts. Simple and genius.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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