That's it. Just... please! Because I really really want an ice slide travel power.
Okay.
Tim (Scary Clown)
Tue, 12/17/2013 - 09:03
#1
Ice Slide
Ice Slide
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Yeah, in CoX I used to approximate that using the Prestige Power Slide, which was kind of lame in that the color was weird and (obviously) there was nothing that suggested ice was involved, but it at least placed the character into the "sliding" character position, so that was enough for me to make it work in my head.
While adding some ice f/x to that animation would be all I would personally need to be happy, I am curious about what you would want out of ice slide. Like CO had a kind of floating ice surfboard thing that had a cloud trail, iirc, and you could basically fly your surfboard around. Is that more inline with what you would be expecting?
Global: @Second Chances
SG: Fusion Force
"And it's not what I wanted
Oh no, it's not what I planned
See it's not where I thought I'd be
It's just where I am"
(Re: Ice Board) God no!
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE how the board felt to control... it felt like surfing... it was awesome.... but it WAS.NOT.ICE.SLIDING.
ice sliding is something distinct in all travel powers... it is a sort of controlled lack of control. You're basically generating a waterslide at your feet, and letting momentum and gravity propel you along a frictionless surface. (still not 100% sure on the mechanics of going "up", but MUTANTS!)
There are three things necessary to make an ice-slide animation LOOK right (imo, of course):
A.) Visible track.
For those who have played Champs, blazing speed or lightspeed felt more "right" for ice slide, then ice slide did.... imo. we need to have the sense (both behind AND in front of the character) that we are generating a physical object (the ice slide) that we are moving ALONG, not so much "on")
B.) Constant generation.
It must appear that the user of the ice slide is constantly producing the slide infront of him/her. (like generating the sidewalk in front of you as you walk along it) this can be one handed or two, by "the power of the mind" or whatever else, but it needs to look like the character is moving THROUGH the slide generation, rather than sitting on top of it as it moves through spaces(ala the "hovering" ice board)
C.) Semi-controlled speed (quick activation/deactivation)
Much like Teleport powers, there is a learning curve to something like Ice Slide. What makes ice slide cool, is that you're surfing/skating along a ribbon of ice... these qualities naturally come with a sense of being "along for the ride". The ideal Ice Slide mechanic will incorporate that "feel" into the animation, without sacrificing the player's actual control over movement (leaning into curves and away from big drops.. increasing speed on downward slopes)
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
hehe... yeah, that didn't work for me at all, either. :) I think it is fine as one of the FX options for a surfingesque flying power (which is basically what it was there), but it is not what I would personally consider ice sliding. Maybe that could be the power choice people who wanted ice and vertical could take. For my part, I would be ecstatic with the ice sliding on the ground that you just described.
Global: @Second Chances
SG: Fusion Force
"And it's not what I wanted
Oh no, it's not what I planned
See it's not where I thought I'd be
It's just where I am"
I see Ice Sliding as a form of "Glide" mixed with "not-quite super speed"
Glide, in the sense that it can function "in air" but that, while it can keep you aloft for a time, it isn't "flying".... and you are always going to make your way back to earth. Champs agreed with this concept, and essentially made you fight for altitude... which was fine for a "magic surfboard" set.. but awful for ice slide.
Personally, if I was designing the power, I would give it a very high jump (an "ice vault" ;P something akin to Champ's "Swinging" power's jump).
ACTUALLY, that's probably how I'd manage it all together (fyi, i'm rather a fan of how Camps made their "active transport powers" work... excepting maybe TP)
Imagine this:
Ice Slide has two "modes." the first is the "hold" mode
While active, if you hold the jump button, you will vault into the air, and begin generating your ice slide at the peak of your jump, you can then travel along at that height, or slide down to the ground and pick up speed to go back up or around or whatever. Letting go of jump has you slow fall with the ability to "vault" again (where holding jump functions as before)
In this way, you can "vault" up to whatever height you wish, and then use gravity/momentum to traverse the city.
Alternatively, there is a second "lock" mode. Double tapping jump while Ice Slide is active vaults you higher than normal and then locks ice slide "on". In this state, you are constantly creating a slide at your feet (in motion/auto run) but can jump at will "off" your slide, generating it again just after the peak of your jump. The only way to unlock is to deactivate ice slide.
So, in most situations, ice slide is on, but not locked.. you can jump a little higher (to make life a little easier) and hold jump to slide quickly around, slowly down, or across the ground..
however, if you've got a ways to travel, you can "Lock in" the ice slide, and let it auto run (sliding and jumping around for fun as you see fit, or just pointing yourself in the direction you need to go, and slide on) and deactivate it when you arrive.
On further reflection, I'd like it if most powers functioned this way (even ones like flight) though not all of them would have the "always moving forward" lock that I think Ice slide's lock (and perhaps the whole power) would demand
this could be a way of providing players who like flight their "super sonic flight" or speedsters their "vibrate through objects" abilities or teleporters their "teleport across the world" vs "rapidly teleport around the room" quality.
Yes, it probably needs some tweaks and management... but the "hold vs. locked" mechanic could really make transportation exciting :D
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
I just want to say that IF there are frictionless powers then please do something so that they too can be stopped in combat. One of the many imbalances in Champions Online travel powers is the fact that even when held. Characters who were on a "ice board" continued moving at a constant velocity.
In a game where every travel power costs the same (one power point) the value of the constant movement really did alot to remove the effectiveness of crowd controllers SPECIFICALLY because in Champions Online many of the crowd control powers were static casts (though others were inexplicably mobile. #ImbalancedMuch?).
So either build the benefits into the power cost OR make the travel power still become stationary when under the influence of crowd control. Same thing for swinging BTW
Crowd Control Enthusiast
well, the simple answer would be to make the animations APPEAR "frictionless" but have the mechancs function in ways that can be better managed
that said, in the "hold/lock" suggestion, just make it so that you cant lock (in combat) and cant jump(through control powers), and suddenly, you cant access the power to get the "benefit" of that innate mobility (that may or may not exist)
a nice thing about how I suggested travel powers working, is that they utalize jump, and so if you cant jump, you cant use them. (powers could get "work arounds" if it made sense and stayed balanced... but wouldnt necessarily have to.)
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
But Ice Slide should allow you to go up and stay up. You stop at the spot of your ramp. Iceman does it all the time. Plus there's just going straight up.
GhostHack nailed exactly what I was thinking.
i agree.... but i cant quite justify it .....and keep the look/feel :-/
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
It'd be fly with a heavy graphic most likely.
which would suuuuuuck. (imo)
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
I don't know. I guess it would depend on the player base.
Ice wasn't a very popular set in CoH. It's not very popular in CO either. But then they're not considered top sets either.
So would people pick Ice Slide if it's not considered the best travel power? Would they pick it purely for the pretty?
I think so. I'm not the only person who took powers on some toon just because they fit aesthetically. I can't imagine I'll stop doing that.
Nothing saying ice slide has to be a travel power. I could also be conceptualized as a control.
Lay down ice path however wide, however long. Player dictates placement with movement key and jump for vertical.
Ice layed down becomes kd field and or wall for however many seconds (melting ya know) .
For lack of a better way to describe it, think the various Jet functions in the original Megaman games.
Pseudo movement, pseudo attack, little puzzle solving ability for kicks.
While it would not strictly be a movement power it would allow for the odd bit of RP.
-joe
Repeat Offender
Tank Addict
Homeless.
Could make it so it just acts like flight with different animations (not typical of fly poses) and leaves a long trail of an ice slide behind/below you. Possibly limit it so you can't go backwards, so you always have to turn (or spin camera) but never go directly backwards, press the space bar while it's activated and you gain verticle. Cancel the travel power toggle and you stay where you're at or fall to the ground.
Ice slide is just a "low friction" friction movement type ... like Fly was in City of Heroes. It's just a movement type where you can't stop on a dime (like Running or Hover). You can even see the differences between Hover and Fly (and Fly with Afterburner) in the Power effects listing:
[url=http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Pool.Flight.Combat_Flight]Hover[/url] ... +10000% MovementControl, MovementFriction for 0.75s
[url=http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Pool.Flight.Fly]Fly[/url] ... +800% MovementControl, MovementFriction for 0.75s
[url=http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Pool.Flight.Afterburner]Afterburner[/url] ... +6000% MovementControl, MovementFriction for 0.75s
And then there's everyone's favorite ski slope buff, Inertial Reduction:
[url=http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Defender_Buff.Kinetics.Inertial_Reduction]Inertial Reduction[/url] ... +2780% JumpHeight, SpeedJumping for 60s ... +4000% MovementControl, MovementFriction for 60s
There's also Ninja Run:
[url=http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Inherent.Inherent.Prestige_Ninja_Run]Ninja Run[/url] ... +1000% MovementControl for 0.75s ... +200% MovementFriction for 0.75s
So there are ways to "finesse" a movement Power that features low friction as a design feature as the foundational building block for its game mechanics. After that, it's just a matter of Art and FX for making it look right.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
It just has to actually feel DIFFERENT...
god, I hated how Champs had 30 different flavors of fly and super speed....
I'm fine with two powers having the same function (both provide "complete" horizontal and vertical mobility) but I do NOT want them to just be two different flavors of the "same power"
Ice Slide [i]isn't[i] flight.... just as much as flight isn't teleport..... ya know?
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
It doesn't have to be flight. An Ice Slide power could simply be a low friction "running" styled movement that requires contact with a surface in order to be in effect.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
As long as it can also generate those surfaces.......I mean, I think most of us are envisioning iceman, over ice Apollo ono
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
What if it generates speed moving down the Z axis and requires speed to go back up the Z axis (like a rollercoaster effect). And of course there would be a minimum speed at which the power worked so that the character was never "stuck"
Crowd Control Enthusiast
actually... that totally works, Kontrol...
basically, you turn on the power, and that lets you move forward at a greater than normal speed(like a super sprint ;P), which also allows you to climb at a slow and steady speed (faster than hover, but nowhere close to flight)....
now, you can maintain your verticle height as long as you want, but if you angle downward, you gain speed rapidly ( to a max as fast or faster then anything but superspeed/teleport) and from that speed, you can climb faster than normal.... but you also lose some turning precision (not start-stop precision, though.. i've alpha tested a super speed or or two...)....
...so as you get going fast, you turn wider (with your super awesome trail of solid ice ;))...
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
Really like this idea of ice slide, can I have ice skates too? Please?!?!
I reserve the right to have an opinion. You reserve the right to not agree.
I like some of the ideas above. I like the "descend faster than you ascend" part especially. Here's how I think it should work, and I think this is the same as what others have mentioned, at least in parts. You travel horizontally, like a slower SuperSpeed, but you trail an ice slick graphic behind you for a given distance. If you press the jump key once to increase altitude, you go up by whatever your jump height would normally be and continue horizontally at the new height (essentially forever). The ice trail continues to build itself under your feet and you are now on a new, higher horizontal plane that your ice slide is giving you. Then you can jump again and go up farther. You're essentially building an ice roller coaster underneath yourself. How long you need to actually make the ice trail and whether or not it needs to have visible structural support to make it look like you're "architecturally capable" of being up at a given height and not just floating mysteriously on some kind of zero gravity ice slick is a devs question I guess. The more realistic looking the better, if it has to look unrealistic in game to make it more functional in code, fine by me. Then maybe you have the option of holding down the jump key to ascend slowly (gain height but at a slower speed than usual). I think this sort of ascending and descending should happen at a constant angle with respect to the horizontal.
I'd also add that the "ice" part of this power is onyl one animation option. It could be "force field" or "telekinetic" or even "magic" I would think. As strictly Ice Slide it feels like it should only be available in an Ice themed set, but as a travel power in and of itself, I could see it having a broader scope.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising