One of the unique things about CoH that the other Superhero genre games seem to shy away from is truly BIG powers.
CoH eased into it, but even at first Blasters and Defenders had their various Novas that would do massive damage to large groups and sling mobs half-way across maps, and tanks and scrappers had Godmode powers where they just simply were not going to go down.
Even if it were a street level SR scrapper, there was Elude where you could Spiderman/Daredevil/Captain America out to save the day when the chips were down (and don't tell me Cap taking out that hoverplane all by himself in Winter Soldier wasn't "One With The Shield":P).
I think cooldown allowed for this, and this feeling of unleashing great power when needed and having your heroic moment is part of the comic book and movie superhero genere and something that CoH captured better than any other game since.
And the incarnate content was the fruition of what Novas and Godmode buttons started. Clicking a button and shielding multiple entire teams of players felt like being a full fledged green lantern--more than green lanterns in DCUO do--and blasts that devastated whole battlefields of mobs felt like being Ice Man, the Human Torch, or Xavier.
One of the things I couldn't put my finger on in the other games was that I LOOKED like a Superhero, and I had powers and/or abilities like a Superhero, but no matter what I never got to where I FELT like a Superhero.
The beauty of a Superhero is he or she is a Titan among men and women who chooses to use their powers, not for their own gain, but to help others and to protect them from the Titans who abuse their power. But it needs to feel like a clash of Titans.
This, by the way, does not preclude normal human or gritty street-level or spy type heroes. They are Titans of their own right, and more impressive for having to do it the hard way.
Batman can Elude and then call down his secret Wayne Enterprises Orbital Cannon in a pinch. Natasha "Black Widow" Romanov can dance through gunfire and throw down a sonic neural disruptor. And Daredevil can just rise to the occasion and win the day against all odds.
So, I say go big. Whatchall think? A vital part of the old CoH experience or not really all that big of a deal? And can/should it be done with or without cooldowns?
EDIT: I originally searched for "big" or "huge" powers and got nothing, then, after I posted this, I searched a bit more and got the "Powers that FEEL powerful" thread, which I had not seen or posted on.
Not EXACTLY the same thing, but close enough I may not have made this thread. Anyway, I am curious what people think about powers that cover large areas or affect large numbers of players, and how cooldowns allow for this or if there's another way.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Definitely with you on this. One of the best parts of CoX for me was earning that superwhizbangpow power at a higher level -- and I'd agree that the cooldown is an important part of keeping it feeling special. In so many other MMOs I never really felt that much more powerful at 50 than I did at 10. In CoX, the acquisition of powers -- especially powers like these -- made the rise seem palpable.
Spurn all ye kindle.
I love how on Marvel Heroes I get a "WOW" power every 20 minutes. You'd think I'd want to "save it for the boss fights" but I love my Maximum Optic Blast to be used when I just go aggro a bunch of mobs too!
Crowd Control Enthusiast
The feeling when I hit 32 and was able to unload full auto for the first time, such an awesome moment for me in the game.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
What can CoT do to fill the gap for MMs (Engineers) and Controllers/Doms (Directors/Brigadier)?
MMs had their Gang War and Hell on Earth, but what sort of Save/Ruin the Day could they have?
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Avatar by MikeNovember
Even if I could only do it once an HOUR, I still want the 'get off my lawn' moment. I want the Superman 'cut loose' moment. All the time would get old to be sure but just once in a while I want to remember what a super can do when they get upset...
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
I've got little here, pretty much a pet summon on steroids, but here goes:
[u]Necromancy[/u]: Apocalypse: (Lame but easy): Summons many (20+) Tier 3 zombies, maybe a weaker version (brawl and projectile vomit only), they disappear after x seconds.
(Awesome but hard): Turns all fallen foes within r metres into zombies, they disappear after x seconds.
(Middle Ground): Turns a single fallen foe into a zombie (stronger fallen = stronger zombie) and summons many (20+) tier 3/4 zombies.
[u]NInjas[/u]: Kurayami kara ya: For x seconds arrows hit enemies at random (or not-so-random O.o), may be introduced by a large smoke bomb.
"Arrows from Darkness"
[u]Robotics[/u]: Titan Robot: Summons gigantic robot with many powerful attacks for x seconds.
or: Nanite Storm: A Sward of nanites damages enemies greatly for x seconds, may be accompanied by appropriate debuffs.
[u]Thugs[/u]: Anarchy: Summons Many tier 4-2 Thugs for x seconds, this includes arsonists, enforcers, posse, and thugs.
[u]Mercs[/u]: D-Day: Summons many tier 4-3 soldiers for x-seconds.
or: Nuclear Option: [self-explanatory] or Orbital Strike
[u]Demons[/u]: Demonic Incarnate: Summons Gigantic, immobile demon with its waist still in a hole of hellfire, has many attacks and abilities.
Some ideas, maybe an Incarnate system of sorts may be a better answer to this.
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Avatar by MikeNovember
As big powers go, I'd like to see some mechanism to allow the power(s) to be useful in multiple situations, at the player's discretion. Desviper's pet suggestions work well in this regard, as did many of the defensive tier 9s - they mostly worked regardless of the number of enemies involved. In contrast, Controller wide-area mezzes didn't fill this desire very well, and Blaster nukes are all fine and good when surrounded by a crowd of enemies, but wasteful and disappointingly ineffective against that single AV. Some way to turn a blaster nuke into a focused mega single target blast that demolishes a boss in one hit or gives that AV a serious sunburn, or allows a controller to channel their wide-area hold to instead hold that AV (or seriously slow them down) would be a nice "go big" moment.
I won't say there's a best way to do it, but some games let the player tap the key for Power X to get the normal result, but get a different result by holding down the key, or a modifier key, or by having no target versus a selected target. These "go big" powers or my "make it single target" idea may need some limitations in PvP.
For the rest, maybe a Smart Power could be used, the power have an Absolute Power (E.g. Blaster Nuke for 10,000 absolute damage) that splits into Individual Power based on the number of available targets. Maybe It could scale for strength (E.G. 100 for a minion, 1000 for an AV) with the strongest target first (AV/Hero>EB>boss>L>minion>underling). This would be a bit OP, but it could be balanced by a once-a-day or similar high limit. This could be tricky on the programming side.
Note: "Power" above refers to any offensive attributes a power could have: damage, hold/stun/immob/sleep/fear/confuse magnitude, debuff magnitude, end damage, etc. This really only applies to offensives, since the same defense is needed for 100 minions as is one strong AV. Defensive abilities (such as vengeance) could also distrbute to team members/allies similarly.
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Avatar by MikeNovember
On that note, as much as I like the idea there (is that vain? :p) , I'd say one single-target (or AoE but equally strong) Tier 9 attack is better than a PBAoE one. Bossfights are much more common and troublesome than being overrun by baddies.
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Avatar by MikeNovember
Balance is a key component for the use of extraordinary power. Where is the fun if you could always spam your ultimate abilities? There has to be limiting factors, especially in an MMO.
[b]Requirements[/b]: Action or set of actions must happen in order to use certain abilities.
Examples:
- Power: Do you have enough to perform this action?
- Cool-Down: Is the ability available to use again?
- Build-Up Meter: A bar that fills up when a certain action occurs. Harnessing energy for this could be obtained from receiving damage, dealing damage, or slaying foes. When you wish to perform a powerful action, it will deduct a certain amount of energy from this pool.
- Combo-Chain: A sequence of actions that must occur to perform certain ability. So in order to use this style, you must perform styles “A”, “B”, and “C” first.
- Enemy Status: Dead, Sleep, Stunned etc. (Such as Warshade’s “Dark Extraction”)
- Day/Night in-game time?
[b]Using the Ability[/b]: What should or could happen when using abilities?
Examples:
- Interruption: A counter measure enemies could use to cancel your action.
- Unable to move from your position, unless you choose to cancel your action by moving.
- “Charge Up”: Should you be able to hold down your ability and make it more powerful depending on how long you held the key down? Have a pinnacle in place for maximum damage. Possibly, have it backfire, if the ability is held too long to prevent abuse.
- “Focus”: As you maintain concentration, the spell is being performed, as it also drains your endurance bar. This is for “pulse” effects, things that are constantly reapplied. (Ex: What if you could hold down “Gale”?)
- A "Toggle" that makes all of your abilities more powerful for a duration. Expanding on the "Build-Up" requirement, you are required to harness energy, as this mode is active it drains until you have expanded this energy.
[b]Consequences[/b]: A malice effect to occur after the power has been consumed, so players should consider if the situation is appropriate for use. Effects vary depending on the action.
Examples:
- Fatigue
- Cool-Down
- Immobilized
- Stunned
- Unable to use powers
- Sacrifice Self
- All abilities are effectively "weaker" for a duration
I wouldn't mind seeing several different possibilities for performing ultimate attacks, as long as they follow some form of rules with requirements, use, and consequences.
Wouldn't that just be for Corrupters? :-D
Spurn all ye kindle.
(Unsure if sarcastic)
"Power" refers to any offensive aspect of a power, see the note.
"Absolute" refers to the total amount allotted to a power, "individual" refers to one target.
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Avatar by MikeNovember
Sorry, was just making a(n apparently bad) joke based on Lord Acton's famous quote: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Spurn all ye kindle.
Even some of the non-wow powers in CoH had a wow-effect on lower level mobs... I remember having an absolute blast using Levitate, and watching the low-reistance low level mobs around the marketplace go flying a good 50 meters into the air. Or flying around opening rooftop presents during christmas time, and using Gale if snowmen appeared, blasting them all off the roof.
I will say that it helps if the devs (and the players) are somewhat conscious of the tasteful use of knockback type effects though, in a team-aoe playing environment.
But yeah, I agree that large area, big effects, with blockbuster animations, and potent impact... are fun fun fun. and you don't get them in other MMO's really.
Word. And it's awesome that the CoT Devs WERE CoH players. They remember both the fun and frustrations of KB.
I used to send snipers flying off of the rooftops in Founders Falls with the Fighting Pool kick.
"AHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...!"
But I want there to be powers that shake the foundations of the heavens... And of course some that don't for the Spideys and Daredevils.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Something we've been experimenting on for KB is to adapt a hold-for-effect approach. Click, it just attacks. Hold it for the whole animation (about a half-second), you get the attack w/ knockback. Don't know if it will stick through the process yet, as there is that fear of hold-for-effect leading to a twitch-like playstyle, but so far it looks promising.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
I agree in that city of heroes certainly did give you the oomph in it's abilities. Thats what I liked about it. CO had only a few abilities that did that, but then made them nearly worthless or far to situational but CoX made the really heavy hitters feel nasty and hit very hard. You had nukes and whatnot but what impressed me, was the fact that the non damage powers also had a lot of impact and had that really massive "oomph" feeling to them, like you were doing something very major to the enemies. Storm powers were absolutely devastating not due to the damage, but the knocks, the debuff effects on enemy hit ratings and defenses, even resistances, were all as impacting as the graphics looked. While in champions, there isn't anything like that, you have the occasional runes and sigils but even then the impact was unless it was damage, very minor at best.
I also have fond memories of things like wormhole in city of heroes as well as temporal distortion fields, time's juncture, fulcrum shift all had huge impacts on the battle, and were highly praised abilities. It was a very clear and massive impact on how things went even if none of them did any damage, they certainly had very noticable side effects that really stopped the damage enemies did or hugely improved team damage, or did a modest of both. They were as powerful as they looked.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
I remember two things early on that had me hooked for life in CoH.
1) I was on my brand new first character the Rad/Rad Defender "Doctor Megaton!" sidekicked with my higher-level friends who got me into the game. We were fighing on a stairwell, a mob came up behind me and was about to kill me when my buddy's Energy Blaster Starbolt blasted over my shoulder to save me and sent the mob flying head over heels down two levels where his foot got stuck in a rail and he hung upside down by his ankle till he faded.
2) A bit later I was in my first big group with my friends and while I was healing, a SS tank punched a mob up over the group and as the mob soared over, my friends Energy Blaster shot straight up at him, further knocking him into the ceiling, wall, and floor. But we were in trouble, so my friend fired off his six-slotted Nova and the earth shook and my screen went blue-white, and he sent the whole crowd of mobs flying across the room map. Most of them didn't get up.
Played for eight years after that.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
This is huge new for the optional KB aficionados.
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Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Like I said, this is still us experimenting. There is going to be a lot more internal testing to know for certain if it will go in.
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
+1
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Avatar by MikeNovember
hmm.. thats very close to my [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/33645#comment-33645]very old suggestion here[/url], but yours might be better. :)
AoE suggestion that i referenced in that post can be found [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/33543#comment-33543]here[/url]. But its very rough. Reading it now... it seems that i should have made it go from Large, to Medium, to Small the longer the mouse button was held down. But, even the order could be manipulated by the user.. at least change it from Ascending size to Descending and vice-versa. (i.e. Large-Small, or Small-Large from a listing) ;)
I personally hope for key press mechanics that allow a single power to do more depending on how you press it. I have mentioned many times I have trouble managing more than ten active keys (with eight being optimal) as it requires me to move my hand which in turn often leads to a situation where I need to check I am hitting correct key. I doubt I will be running more fire-and-forget combat powers than those even if there's an option. The rest will go for passives and toggles that are always running - assuming they exist. Beyond that it gets too cumbersome.
I'm very much against charge adding more raw damage to attack but adding utility sounds great. For me being able to increase AoE size or ability to add a knockback or other mez effect by hold and release would be great. It would allow me to do more with less powers (and less keys). I'm also a fan of channeled powers and power chains. Channeling or charging by holding a key break the monotony of repetitive single strokes which are especially useful in long play sessions. Power chains add variety since you can have multiple effects behind a single key.
Also I don't see what mechanics have to do with twitch. Twitch is a style of gameplay where you need a combination of fast reactions, acute situational awareness and quick tactical sense to beat the foe where as in non-twitch games the timeframes for reactions are longer so they are not as demanding. Basically ability to fight enemy in a short timeframe is what makes something twitch combat. Not the mechanics behind key strokes.
We've discussed a lot of ideas, including one example which adds damage, but it is not a simple charging-for-damage. The idea was that we have "Long-Strike" which is either a) a click-attack for moderate power or b) a hold-attack for heavy-damage snipe. If you cannot hold it long enough/get interrupted, it is just a normal attack.
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
Hmmm.. sounds a little like a Stalkers.. Assassin's Strike. ;D Which i always thought of as being similar to a blasters Snipe.
Going in line with this idea, what I would counter-propose is a diminishing returns scaling damage system for nukes and AoE in general.
AoE cone nuke X (Full Auto v2.0) has 1600 full potential damage at boost value A, with a maximum of 16 targets. If all 16 targets are hit, the full damage is dealt to each target (100) and reduced only by their resistances. If only 8 targets are hit, they take 150 damage, reduced by resists. Half the targets, 150% of the damage as compared to 16 targets hit.
This scaling damage would continue at a percentage rate all the way down to only one target being hit and taking 1/2 to 3/4 of the full potential damage of the power. In the above example, a single target being hit would take anywhere between 800-1200 damage from what effectively becomes a concentrated effect of the AoE power. A single target would never take the full damage from an AoE power, barring debuffs and that's a boost to damage taken rather than damage assigned, but an AoE power being used on a single target would do more than TICKLE them.
That's my suggestion anyways. Take it or leave it.
The original Lady of Ysgard. -Virtue
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That sounds reasonable as long as you don't go over the board with those. Not every power within a set should have a charge mechanic. For example instead of CoH energy blast which had kb as part of the set theme I'd rather see a situation where the KB is restricted to fewer powers but is more controllable.
On a mildly related note. It might be interesting to have multihit powers i.e. energy torrent could actually launch a torrent of missiles. Basically a power that hits multiple times in small packages as opposed to a power that hits in a single big packet. I could see a situation where multihit powers could have advantage over a big burst. Especially if defenses are built around this.
DoT DMG powers?
DoTs are still usually treated as a single hit or autohit. Correct if I'm wrong (and I actually may be) but for example if full auto in CoH failed to hit you wasted the whole power with a long animation. Bullets kept spraying but they hit nothing if initial check fails. Multihit powers have multiple chances to hit. Think arcane missiles spell. It shoots one or more magic missiles which each have their own chance to hit or think full auto where the power pulses multiple times within its animation which each have a chance to hit.
Actually some CoH DoTs probably had multiple checks like rain of fire. It's a bit fuzzy to me how DoTs and accuracy worked in CoH. It could be that each DoT tick actually had their own to-hit check in which case yes, DoTs. :)
A power like that would be strong against CoH defense which relied on hits missing. Multiple small hits mean multiple to-hit checks. It's weaker against resistance which would just absorb the small hits. Comparatively single big hit is completely wasted if it misses but since it is not likely to miss a resistant character it is stronger against them.
There's also room for ablative armors and hp barrier bubbles that burst from damage. Ablative armor would quickly go down from multiple small hits where as hp barrier would go down faster from one big hit.
I'm not familiar with that spell, but i'm guessing you cast it and can continue moving around, not locked (frozen) in place... able to launch other powers?
That sounds plausible... but i'm curious if and how other power-sets could make use* of that. As an example.. If you had an Assault Rifle, how would the delayed cast look/work? Do you shoot Straight Up and Forget It (like Rain Of Fire).. and continue using your other powers? But that's an approach we are familiar with already. Can you give a better Assault Rifle example of this approach?
I'll never forget the first time I really used Gang War usefully. Was in a pug deep in the orange rocky tunnels of some standard mission. We pulled way too many groups at once somehow and started dropping like flies. I coulen't daisy-chain rez my pets fast enough.
There were two of us left vs. waaay too many with just a sliver each when yet another group of wanderers (5th Column or their descendants) came thru.
"The all is lost moment!!!"
"Well, I guess I'LL SEE YOU IN HELL!!!" I thought (literally!) and clicked Gang War and pressed on against the impossible.
Fight...fight...fight...recast minions...fight...triage...fight...lieutenants...fight fight. A few minutes later, wtf, we are the only ones standing!!!
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
Crazy-ass powers rule. Epic moments are the ones you really remember.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
When I finally got Full Auto and Gun [s]Turret[/s] Drone It felt so awesome. I miss that ability to just lay waste to a crowd of mooks.
SEZ
Tatter