First Draft attempt at a [b][url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/26654#comment-26654]Control System[/url][/b] for City of Titans … which seemed to generate some positive reviews.
This is going to be my Second Draft at trying to build a Control System, and I’m going to be building on a lot of the groundwork I laid down in my [b][url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/redlynne-goes-crazy-proposes-underlying-game-structure]Redlynne goes crazy … Proposes Underlying Game Structure[/url][/b] thread … which also seems to have generated [i]one or two[/i] positive reviews (it’s hard to keep count). I’m doing this mainly because you really need to have at least SOME kind of minimal structure in place in before you can even begin to make sense of a Control System due to the importance of Enhancements.
At any rate, it seems as if a familiar warning ought to be in order …
[b][size=30]WALL OF TEXT™ CRITS YOU!!!![/size][/b]
You have been warned.
Proceed at your own risk.
Do not back up, severe tire damage may result from Caltrops.
So make sure the roll bar is down and locked, your seat back trays are in an upright position, and that you really are tall enough to ride this ride. ^_~
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
City of Heroes used a Control System that, while functional, wasn’t all that interesting because it essentially covered only two states … fully functional or totally incapacitated. There was no middle ground. There were no states of being impaired, as opposed to being completely shut down. There were no degrees or shades or sense of progression when it came to Control Effects, since everything was strictly Boolean. You were either Controlled, or you weren’t. And while that may have been “adequate” for a game in 2004, it is hardly adequate for a game that ought to be launching 2 years from now.
The thing is, the City of Heroes Control System had some decent ideas in it, but they just weren’t taken far enough.
The first thing I’d want to do to “convert” the City of Heroes Control System into a format suitable for use in City of Titans would be to increase the scaling factor of what we all called Mag (for Magnitude). I want to increase the integers used for Mag by a factor of x10, so as to give the system for City of Titans more “room” and more “scope” to work with. So a Power that would have been Mag 3 in City of Heroes would become a Mag 30 in City of Titans, just as a point of reference.
The second thing I’d want to do is to give every character in the entire game a Level 1 Passive Inherent Power … Control Protection … which would be Enhanceable(!) using Buff Enhancements under my system as seen in my other “crazy” thread (linked to above). This power would basically assign a character’s (PC or NPC) base Control Mag for all Control Effects as being the Character’s Level below zero. So Level 10 equals -10 Mag Protection against all Control Effects. Reasonably straightforward, and obviously one that scales with Levels. This Passive Power though, unlike most Powers that can be Slotted, would not begin with a “free” first Enhancement Slot. Enhancement Slots could be ADDED to this Power when Leveling Up, but they would have to be “spent” on this Power in order to do so. In other words, “no freebies” on being able to Enhance this one. It would however be subject to being augmented by the Global Enhancement Slots.
This would mean that each and every Archetype in the game would be capable of increasing their resistance/protection against Control Effects, not just (primarily/exclusively) Melee Archetypes. In other words, non-Melee combinations of Powers would no longer be relegated to the “Squishy” category simply by virtue of not being a Melee Archetype, and therefore having no protection against Control Powers.
However, improving a character’s Control Protection will require an investment by the Player, and this particular aspect of the game would be set up (quite deliberately) to operate as a Measure versus Countermeasure sort of arms race (the shape of which will become clearer as I explain). This in turn will create a greater diversity in build strategies with respect to Control Powers, because Players will have greater control (through use of Enhancements) over both the Magnitude AND Duration of their Control Powers, as well as their ability to resist and shrug off the effects of those Powers. I’ll come back to explaining which Enhancements would go into the Control Protection Power (the defense) after addressing the basic structures of the Control Powers (the attacks) so as to make this all fit together better in concept.
All Control Powers (Confuse, Fear, Hold, Immobilize, Knockback(!), Sleep, Stun and Taunt(!)) would generate a positive Mag of the Character’s Level multiplied by a constant. So a Level 10 character casting a Sleep with a constant multiplier of 3 on the base Power would be casting a 30 Mag Sleep prior to any Enhancement effects, for example. This Magnitude could be increased by slotting [b]Debuff Enhancements[/b] into the Slots of the Control Power itself, and/or the Global Enhancement Slots (if any). This increase would follow the standard formula for Increasing Power Effects, and the “value” of the Enhancement being applied to each Effect of a Power would receive its own Enhancement Multiplier entry in the spreadsheet controlling these Powers. This in turn would then allow the Developers to moderate or “throttle” just how effective Enhancements are for Effects in Powers in a very carefully controlled and “micro-targeted” fashion to address Balance Issues should they arise, as I’ve explained in my other posts on this topic elsewhere here in the forums.
All Control Powers would likewise have a Duration assigned to their Effects, and these Durations would be Enhanced separately using the Control Duration Enhancement, not the Debuff Enhancement that modifies Mag, in the Control System that I’m proposing. This would then lead to a portion of the Measure vs Countermeasure dynamic I mentioned earlier, because it would lead to effectively three different strategies for stacking sufficient Mag(nitude) onto a Target so as to achieve a Complete Control effect upon them. These three strategies would involve using either high Mag/low Duration, thereby specializing in powerful but quick to expire Controls that do not stack up well for very long … low Mag/high Duration, thereby making it possible to stack high Mag over a long period of time but be “slow” to stack sufficiently … and lastly a balance between Mag and Duration which due to how the Enhancment system works in terms of Diminishing Returns represents the best “balance” between the two factors, which will tend to yield the best results over time (within reason).
So in order to Enhance the Mag of a Control Power … a [b]Debuff Enhancement[/b] is needed, because all Control Power attacks are functionally Debuffs … and in order to Enhance the Duration of a Control Power, a [b]Control Duration Enhancement[/b] is needed in order to extend the Duration of the Control Effect above its base Duration. These Debuff and Control Duration Enhancements can be slotted either into the attack Powers themselves, or into the Global Enhancement Slots which are a part of my Powers, Slotting and Enhancement structure detailed in my other “crazy” thread.
In order to Enhance the Control Protection Inherent Power … a [b]Buff Enhancement[/b] is needed to increase the amount of Mag Protection against all Control Effects is required instead, because you are buffing your own level(s) of protection against Control Effects … and in order to reduce the duration that a Control Effect will have upon your character, a [b]Control Duration Enhancement[/b] is required. These Buff and Control Duration Enhancements can be slotted either into the Control Protection Inherent Power itself, or into the Global Enhancement Slots as outlined in my Powers, Slotting and Enhancements thread already linked to previously in my other “crazy” thread.
Note that this means that unlike most of the Enhancement Types, the Control Duration Enhancement gets to serve “double duty” on both the offensive (increasing durations) and defensive (decreasing durations) side of the Measure vs Countermeasure competitive system I’m designing here. The reason why I’m doing this, rather than keeping the system as “just” a Mag vs Mag comparison is because in City of Heroes, some of the Mez Protections Powers (such as [url=http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Scrapper_Defense.Super_Reflexes.Practiced_Brawler]Practiced Brawler[/url] for Super Reflexes) contained Mez Resistances that would reduce the Durations of particular types of Mez Effects, making the stacking of these Effects more difficult to accomplish because their Durations expired faster.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
[b]Degrees of Control and Stacking of Mag[/b]
So the basic structure of the Control System that I’m proposing amounts to setting up a system very much like that of City of Heroes, where negative Mag values represent NO Control Effect at all … and positive Mag values represent a varying degree of Control Effects, beginning with Impairment before reaching TOTAL Control (of the Type of the attack Power).
In this system, just like in City of Heroes, the “midpoint” threshold to cross is 0 Mag in order to BEGIN to have a Partial Control Effect. All Characters will have a Control Protection Inherent Power worth -(Character Level) Mag [i]which can be Enhanced[/i] to drive this value deeper into the negatives, thereby offering greater “protection” against Control Powers.
When a Character has enough Control Mag stacked upon them (either from a single Power used once, multiple times, or from multiple sources with different Powers) to reach a Mag of greater than zero, the Control Type BEGINS to take effect. The range of this Partial Control “zone” of Mag(nitudes) will exactly match the “depth” of the Character’s nominal Control Protection below zero. So if a Level 20 Character with no slots in their Control Protection Inherent Power has a -20 Mag versus All Controls by default, then their “range” in which they are subject to Partial Control Effects would be from +0 to +20 Mag. Note that Buff Enhancements will increase both of these ranges, as will Level Increases, above AND below zero. So a Level 20 Character who had slotted their Control Protection Power with sufficient Enhancement(s) to achieve a -30 Mag Protection result would likewise have a Partial Control range from +0 to +30 Mag.
When Control Mag is stacked above the limit of the Partial Control range, Total Control is achieved. Total Control, in this context, should be associated with the familiar states of Control we remember from City of Heroes … where Holds would HOLD, where Stuns would STUN, Sleep would SLEEP, and so on. The Total Control state would be one where control of the Character is temporarily taken away from the Player … or in the case of Taunt, “controlled” or otherwise redirected in some desired fashion.
On the other end of the spectrum, the Control Powers that are used as attack Powers would all be scaled using effectively the same system, such that Character Level is a foundational variable for determining the +Mag that a Control Power attack will generate on its Target(s). So, once again, for example, a Level 10 Control Power would start with a default value of generating +10 Mag of its Control Type. This base Mag value would then be Multiplied by a Control Multiplier specified within the Power itself which then dictates how “strong” that particular Control Power’s effect(s) are before Enhancement. Note that a single Control Power that exerts more than one Type of Control effect could potentially have different Control Multipliers for each of those effects, making one “strong” and the other “weak” before being Enhanced. Likewise, each of those effects would ALSO have an Enhancement Multiplier specified within the Power, to determine the “strength” of Enhancements upon those Control Effects. This would then let the Developers “fine tune” Control Powers very precisely for Game Balance.
Ultimately, what this does is create a system of pitting Character Level against Character Level, applies a Multiplier to the Mag of the Control Power’s effect(s), multiplies all of that by the Debuff Enhancement value run through the Diminishing Returns Formula … and adds that amount of +Mag Control Type to the Target … for a Duration specified by the Power’s effect(s), which can also be Enhanced to last longer through use of Control Duration Enhancements.
Defensively, a Character’s Control Protection Inherent Power, which can be Enhanced by Buff Enhancements and Control Duration Enhancements grants them a -Mag degree of protection from Control effects, and defines a range of positive Mag values where a Control effect is only Partial (thus only Impairing) before reaching a state of Total Control. The Total Control state begins where the +Mag of the Control stack applied to the target is effectively “DOUBLE” the value of the -Mag protection level offered by the Control Protection Inherent Power (because of needing to add enough to get up to zero and then go as far again above zero to reach Total Control).
Thus when the Level of the attacker and the target are equal, the relative Character Levels of the attacker and the target effectively “drop out of the equation” and it just becomes a matter of pitting offensive Enhancement slotting against defensive Enhancement slotting in order to determine if the Control attack on the target can achieve a sufficiently large Mag stack in order to achieve either No Control, Partial Control or Total Control. Obviously, having a “deeper” negative Mag Protecton will increase the “width” of the Partial Control spread, pushing the amount of total +Mag that would need to be stacked in order to achieve a state of Total Control to be much larger than it would otherwise need to be.
Going from -20 Mag to +20 Mag (or more) would require use of a +40 Mag attack Power in order to reach a Total Control effect state. But going from -30 Mag to +30 Mag (or more) would obviously require use of a +60 Mag attack Power.
This basic structure then sets up the necessary “push/pull” mechanic to create a dynamic Arms Race between Control Powers and Control Protection Powers, so as to generate the Measure vs Countermeasure I was alluding to earlier. It also creates an interesting set of trade-offs when it comes to allocating Enhancement Slots in builds, as well as deciding the value of what to put into a particular build’s Global Enhancement Slots, depending on the “needs” of the build more generally.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Now, before anyone freaks out … understand that all of this I’m proposing here is essentially a “sketch” rather than a final draft so as to get some kind of minimal “skeleton” into place that can be further fleshed out with more details. One of the major details that would need to be more clearly defined would be … what ARE the game mechanical effects of Partial Control by Control Type? This is something I haven’t fully nailed down yet and am open to suggestions on.
Another question to nail down in general terms would be … what are the default Control Multipliers for Powers as a general rule of thumb based on Control Type? This sort of thing would be where at a “global” concept level you’d want to decide if, by default, all Sleep Control Powers have a larger Control Multiplier than Hold Control Powers, simply because Sleep is a “fragile” Hold … and therefore, all other things being equal, a Sleep Power would generate a bigger +Mag by default than a Hold Power would. Things like that.
What I’d really want though is a [i]degrees of Impairment[/i] system to be used that works on a scaling method, rather than some kind of intermittent random proc kind of thing. So a Partial Sleep might do (throwing these out purely for example purposes) a Perception Debuff, a Movement Debuff and a Recharge Debuff, because … You Are Getting Sleepy. You’re not asleep YET, but you’re having to fight to stay awake.
How much of an Impairment would be assessed would be a simple fraction of the +Mag above zero as the numerator, and the Total Control Mag threshold for that character as the denominator of a fraction. So if a Character with a -20 Mag Protection gets hit with a +30 Mag Sleep attack, that would push them to +10 Mag on Sleep state. +10 Mag would be halfway between 0 and +20 … so the Character would suffer a (10/20)=50% Global Debuff to their Perception, Movement and Recharge for the Duration of the Sleep effect.
So, once again, having a “well Enhanced” Control Protection Power, offering a “deep” negative Mag of Protection, will offer a wider “range” of Partial Control vulnerability, which in turn will mean that for the same amount of positive Mag (absolute) stacked against them they will be suffering LESS Impairment than if they had NOT Enhanced their Control Protection Power, so long as they’re still in the Partial Control range (of course).
So using the previous example as a baseline, if instead of having -20 Mag Protection, let’s say the target of the attack had -25 Mag Protection, so that same +30 Mag attack Power would have only raised them up to +5 Mag instead of +10. The amount of impairment would then be only a (5/25)=20% Global Debuff to Perception, Movement and Recharge for the Duration of the Sleep Effect … not 50% … which is a fairly large difference in terms of Impairment when under a Partial Control.
Now, one thing that I want EVERYONE to recognize is that although it is important to give Every Character in the game a Control Protection Power, whether they are a PC or an NPC (if the NPC engages in combat) … this should not be viewed as the EXCLUSIVE and ONLY source or Control Protection that any particular Character could have or receive. City of Heroes had numerous examples of Powers that offered Mez Protection in one form or another in them … some of them were Self Only, others were Target Ally, and some were PBAoE. So there would be plenty of “opportunities” for the Powers and Balance Developers to stack on additional sources of Control Protection in City of Titans beyond the bare bones that I’m laying out here.
What I’m primarily interested in doing with this proposal is outlining and sketching the FRAMEWORK for how to take the Mez System of City of Heroes and Do It One Better. Understand that this framework is by no means “complete” at this point, but I feel like the Design Concepts it embodies ought to be “familiar” enough and extensible enough to give City of Titans a foundation to begin building on for how to handle Controls … and what it would mean to be a [b]Controller[/b] in our new game system.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I'm trying to read for comprehension.. This is one of the single most important systems to me. I'll let you know what I think after the read.
I will say that examples of your system would help.
Can you clarify the constants and variables in your system?
Is the duration of the mez constant across cast types (a constant written into the power when you acquire it)?
Is the duration a measure of time or a quantity of "points" to be depleted?
.. I guess after reading I have more questions than answers.. With so little of the game's mechanics implemented I really don't have a frame of reference for what you've written.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Red, I suggest some very brief examples of your idea. On first blush they look good, but my head is having trouble wrapping around the total concept. Just lay out some basic examples like a Hold from a lvl 10 guy with no enhancement, with some enhancement and then enhanced to the hilt. Then throw the idea to the other side for slotting against Control.
Just to make things clearer for the rest of us please.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Level 10 attacker
Control Power Multiplier: x1
Duration: (sufficient for purposes of example illustration)
Assume Control Power Hits and Takes effect
Enhancement: None
Control Power Mag: +10
Level 10 target
Control Protection Power Enhancements: none
Control Protection Mag: -10
First Control attack raises target's Control Mag from -10 to 0. At 0, the target suffers no Control status effects.
Second Control attack, stacking upon the first (which has not yet expired its duration), raises the target's Control Mag from 0 to +10. At +10 the target reaches Total Control state (+10 Mag or above) and the attack's Control Effect is fully enforced.
=====
Level 10 attacker
Control Power Multiplier: x1
Duration: (sufficient for purposes of example illustration)
Assume Control Power Hits and Takes effect
Enhancement: None
Control Power Mag: +10
Level 9 target
Control Protection Power Enhancements: none
Control Protection Mag: -9
First Control attack raises target's Control Mag from -9 to +1. At +1, the target suffers Partial Control status effect(s) as determined by Control Type. The fraction of Impairment due to Partial Control is an (1/9)=11.1% reduction.
Second Control attack, stacking upon the first (which has not yet expired its duration), raises the target's Control Mag from +1 to +11. At +11 the target reaches Total Control state (+9 Mag or above) and the attack's Control Effect is fully enforced.
Level 10 attacker
Control Power Multiplier: x1
Duration: (sufficient for purposes of example illustration)
Assume Control Power Hits and Takes effect
Enhancement: None
Control Power Mag: +10
Level 11 target
Control Protection Power Enhancements: none
Control Protection Mag: -11
First Control attack raises target's Control Mag from -11 to -1. At -1, the target suffers no Control status effects.
Second Control attack, stacking upon the first (which has not yet expired its duration), raises the target's Control Mag from -1 to +9. At +9, the target suffers Partial Control status effect(s) as determined by Control Type. The fraction of Impairment due to Partial Control is a (9/11)=81.8% reduction.
Third Control attack, stacking upon the first two (which have not yet expired their durations), raises the target's Control Mag from +9 to +19. At +19 the target reaches Total Control state (+11 Mag or above) and the attack's Control Effect is fully enforced.
=====
Level 10 attacker
Control Power Multiplier: x1
Duration: (sufficient for purposes of example illustration)
Assume Control Power Hits and Takes effect
Enhancement: +100% after Diminishing Returns
Enhancement Multiplier: x1
Control Power Mag: +20
Level 10 target
Control Protection Power Enhancements: none
Control Protection Mag: -10
First Control attack raises target's Control Mag from -10 to +10. At +10 the target reaches Total Control state (+10 Mag or above) and the attack's Control Effect is fully enforced.
=====
Level 10 attacker
Control Power Multiplier: x1
Duration: (sufficient for purposes of example illustration)
Assume Control Power Hits and Takes effect
Enhancement: +50% after Diminishing Returns
Enhancement Multiplier: x2
Control Power Mag: +20
Level 10 target
Control Protection Power Enhancements: none
Control Protection Mag: -10
First Control attack raises target's Control Mag from -10 to +10. At +10 the target reaches Total Control state (+10 Mag or above) and the attack's Control Effect is fully enforced.
=====
Level 10 attacker
Control Power Multiplier: x2
Duration: (sufficient for purposes of example illustration)
Assume Control Power Hits and Takes effect
Enhancement: none
Control Power Mag: +20
Level 10 target
Control Protection Power Enhancements: none
Control Protection Mag: -10
First Control attack raises target's Control Mag from -10 to +10. At +10 the target reaches Total Control state (+10 Mag or above) and the attack's Control Effect is fully enforced.
=====
Level 10 attacker
Control Power Multiplier: x1
Duration: (sufficient for purposes of example illustration)
Assume Control Power Hits and Takes effect
Enhancement: None
Control Power Mag: +10
Level 10 target
Control Protection Power Enhancements: +100% Mag after Diminishing Returns
Enhancement Multiplier: x1
Control Protection Mag: -20
First Control attack raises target's Control Mag from -20 to -10. At -10, the target suffers no Control status effects.
Second Control attack, stacking upon the first (which has not yet expired its duration), raises target's Control Mag from -10 to 0. At 0, the target suffers no Control status effects.
Third Control attack, stacking upon the first two (which have not yet expired their durations), raises target's Control Mag from 0 to +10. At +10, the target suffers Partial Control status effect(s) as determined by Control Type. The fraction of Impairment due to Partial Control is a (10/20)=50% reduction.
Fourth Control attack, stacking upon the first three (which have not yet expired their durations), raises the target's Control Mag from +10 to +20. At +20 the target reaches Total Control state (+20 Mag or above) and the attack's Control Effect is fully enforced.
=====
Level 10 attacker
Control Power Multiplier: x1
Duration: (INsufficient for purposes of example illustration)
Assume Control Power Hits and Takes effect
Enhancement: None
Control Power Mag: +10
Level 10 target
Control Protection Power Enhancements: +100% Mag after Diminishing Returns, 100% Control Duration Reduction after Diminishing Returns
Mag Enhancement Multiplier: x1
Duration Enhancement Multiplier: x1
Control Protection Mag: -20
First Control attack raises target's Control Mag from -20 to -10. At -10, the target suffers no Control status effects.
Second Control attack, stacking upon the first (which has not yet expired its duration), raises target's Control Mag from -10 to 0. At 0, the target suffers no Control status effects.
Third Control attack can only stack with the Second Control attack but not the First, because the Duration of the First Attack has expired (due to Control Protection reducing the Duration of Control Effects) by the time that the Third Control attack hits. Control Mag from the attack functionally "peaks" at 0, where the target suffers no Control status effects ... unless an additional source of the Control can be applied to generate a Mag stack "quickly enough" to reach at least +1 Mag for a minimal Partial Control effect of (1/20)=5% or achieve +20 Mag or more for a Total Control effect.
=====
As this series of "laboratory" comparisons ought to make clear, so long as the Levels are even, the Measure vs Countermeasure will essentially come down to a matter of Enhancement Slotting and how "fast" the requisite Mag stack can be generated to impose a Control effect before the Duration(s) of those attacks expire. Bear in mind also that with this system, disparities in Levels [i]decrease over time[/i] as characters advance in Level ... so 29 vs 30 is not as big of a difference as 9 vs 10 ... for reasons that ought to be obvious. The practical upshot of that then would be that for a variety of reasons, any sort of Control Powers granted to Mob NPCs ought to be highly "restricted" (perhaps to Bosses only, for example) during Levels 1-10 since pretty much EVERYONE is going to be highly vulnerable to Control Powers during the early early game.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Many thanks! Pretty much just what I was looking for!
Now that I can do straight comparisons, I like it a lot. The 'no Controls for the first 10 levels' (except bosses) thing is similar to how CoX did it as well IIRC so no worries there.
Is it safe to assume that Control Defense will likely be built into some of the Melee-type defense sets (for Tanks and such) as you see this or no?
I'm all about customization and this idea pretty much has it all. A player can build for maximum Controls and lock down the enemy early, build for Control Defense so they are less likely to get controlled while attacking or some point in between. I've always hated that most status effects were binary and this seems to work well.
Best of all, the Devs can tweak this as we go if they find that a certain power is OP because of recharge rate, area, range or whatever.
Bravo!
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
I guess my first question is... what deliniates a 'partial stun' or 'partial sleep' from a 'total' stun or sleep...
and, further.. what is the distinction between a traditional secondary effect like 'slow', and a 'partial hold' (which, logically, would be some form of movement impairment...)
lastly, what is a 'partial taunt'?
is the 'partial' category just a catalogue of secondary effects, equatable to debuff power sets and, if so, does that begin to impinge on power effect diversity ? (If every control set in the game, effectively, can cause a wide range of secondary status effects (as 'partial' holds)... will that make control sets sort of generic?
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
GhostHack, this is why I was saying that this is so far just a sketch, as opposed to a fully fleshed out proposal with every detail locked down ... mainly because there are points that I'd want to "settle" by consensus, rather than by fiat.
For most of the Partials, they're Impairments as opposed to Shutdowns. What FORM those partials would take would kinda depend on how those Controls are conceptualized to function. So ultimately, what you'd want to do is break down the "functions" of the various Controls into their component pieces so as to decide what they would "do" if only Partially effective.
So just for the purposes of illustrating an example here ... Hold versus Sleep.
A Hold could be built up out of having the features of an Movement Speed "crash to zero" (because it stops movement) and a Animation Time "crash to infinity" (to prevent actions from happening). So in a Total Control situation, a target of a Hold can neither Move nor Activate any Powers. However, their powers can still Recharge while they are held, and they have no Perception Debuffing, so they can still "see" what is happening, even if they can't *DO* anything about it.
Using that combination of properties then, it becomes fairly straightforward to decide what a Partial Hold would mean ... in that a Partial Hold would slow, but not stop, Movement, and would slow, but not stop, Animation Speeds for use of Powers.
Reach a Total Control state and these effects become "total" in that you can't Move and you can't Act. You're HELD.
Conversely, with Sleep, it could also be done as a Movement Speed "crash to zero" (because it stops movement) and a Perception Radius "crash to zero" (because it makes it hard to focus on what's happening around you) and ... I dunno ... the same Animation Time "crash to infinity" (to prevent actions from happening) like Holds have. Sleep gets the extra effect (the Perception Radius Debuff) because Sleep is a "fragile" Hold that can be broken by Damage.
Or take a fairly simple and straightforward Immobilize. The only thing such a Control power would do is a Movement Speed "crash to zero" (because it stops movement) so a Partial Immobilize would just slow Movement instead of halting it. In compensation for having a more "limited" suite of effects relative to Hold or Sleep though, Immobilize might be granted a higher Power Multiplier (increasing its Base Mag), or a higher Enhancement Multiplier (making the effects of Enhancement "greater" than they would be otherwise), or even an increased Duration so that Immobilizes last longer (on average) than Holds or Sleeps ... or whatever.
Needless to say, Total Control would "clamp" these degrees of impairment at the "shutdown" level for whatever the Control Type is.
Obviously a Confuse or a Taunt winds up with being some rather interesting cases that would require a bit more thought than I have time for [i]right this instant[/i] (since I have to meet up with Lin in about half an hour), but at this point you ought to have enough parts and pieces of the puzzle to start being able to experiment with how to fit things together conceptually and see where I'm going with this. Basically "work backwards" from the Total Control state that we're all familiar with, and start asking yourself what "parts and pieces" would go into creating that Control effect ... and then reverse engineer what would happen if those Control effects were "incomplete" on a sliding scale, rather than working on some sort of intermittent Proc basis that would cause them to "flutter" between being On and Off erratically in order to achieve a Partial condition.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
BTW, don't forget everyone, when Red says "control" it's not just things like "sleep" or "hold" or "confuse"; it's also things like "stun" and maybe even "placate"... or "knockback"...!
So my AR-equivalent blaster is throwing around stuns with the grenade, in addition to specified damage. Could well stack with stuns from other players for some fun effects.
On the flip side, the grenade-tossing bad guys can give you some serious mez annoyance if they gang up on you. Can't just ignore their weak damage any more.
It seems implicit. The effect of Control Defense ("Fortitude"?) could be applied to other powers, which have their own enhancement slots.
And I've always hated the "sit back and wait for the game to let you play again" aspect of mez in CoH. You can kind of see Blaster Defiance as a step in the direction of implementing a "partial control".
Power levels, enhancement multipliers, diminishing returns curve... several variables here to tweak.
The only thing that bothers me is the implementation of Control Defense as a default-zero-slots power. In CoX, all powers got a free enhancement slot if they were slottable at all, so the lack of slots was an obvious visual cue that "you can't put slots here". I expect that visual cue to carry over, and people won't know they can slot the power. Graying out the powers that are actually unslottable might not be enough, since that could represent "power you haven't chosen from the set". So there are some UI issues to work out, as well as the back end code no longer being able to assume that any slottable power has at least one slot at all times.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
The concept of "partial controls" will likely result in the redefinition or removal of some of the mez types that CoH had, as well as adding new ones. For example, Web Grenade had a "slow" and an "immobilize". But wait, what if "slow" was just "partial immobilize"? Now you have focused the power's mez effects into one effect, and don't have weird effects like "well I stacked a lot of immobilize but not much slow" or vice versa which leads to "what do I slot for?" questions that make no sense. Now you just slot for immobilize, and most things will get stopped while resistant things get slowed down if there's a partial effect.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
This concept sounds great!
So here's another idea I had this morning, expanding on the mag system in this proposal. Basically, it's a diminishing returns system based on nature. First, some background.
In electronics (and other fields of physics), when you add two [i]signals[/i] together, you add their amplitudes. But if they are [i]noise[/i] (i.e. random) sources, you add their [i]powers[/i] which is related to (for purposes of the argument) the square root of the amplitude. The way this works is you square the amplitudes, add them, and then square root, akin to "root mean square" (RMS).
What that models is that, if sources are random and uncorrelated (i.e. uncoordinated, independent, synchronized, or unrelated) they don't "reinforce" each other as much as they would if they were correlated. (This is how a laser differs from a flashlight: the photons in a laser beam are synchronized, but those in a flashlight beam are not, so the former delivers a lot more power for a given amount of input energy then the latter.)
Applying that to mag: Player 1 hits a target with a grenade. Say that puts a mag 10 knockback on the target for a second or two. Player 2 does the same thing, and puts another mag 10 knockback on the target. What's the total mag on the target? sqrt(10*10 + 10*10) = sqrt(200) = 14 (rounded). A third player would push the total to 17. And so on.
This reflects that there is no coordination between these weapons and thus there will be some amount of "interference" between them reducing the total effect on the target. You could take this further and apply it to other things, such as mind control. Two mind controllers hitting the same target(s) with a hold attack will have some degree of "stepping on each other's toes" by default.
However, one mind controller stacking attacks on a target [i]would[/i] be coordinated. How does that work? Add the mags [i]before[/i] squaring. sqrt((10 + 10) ^ 2) = 20. Say there are two mind controllers stacking two attacks: you'd get sqrt((10 + 10) ^ 2 + (10 + 10) ^ 2) = 28.
But what if one of the players had some kind of Leadership-like power whose effect is "coordinate attacks between myself and anyone in a certain range" or "between myself and a single teammate"? Then your two trollers get full-power stacking, with a mag of 40...
What I hope something like this would do is narrow the gap between small teams and large ones, so if you "only" have one troller along you're not gimped because the mission is assuming two or three. And Hami greens wouldn't need a mag of 100 (1000 here) to be a challenge. And to create an opportunity for more role-playing of course:
"[b]Blast it![/b] Our attacks aren't [b]strong[/b] enough! Its resistance is [b]too much![/b]"
"We should [b]coordinate[/b] our powers! By [b]teaming up[/b], we can defeat it!"
etc.
Some attacks, like the aforementioned grenade, could be "uncoordinatable" and [i]never[/i] add amplitudes (always powers), too.
This works the other way, too: when faced with a bunch of grenade-throwers, you're not stuck in a perm-knockdown situation (assuming default control resistance). The devs would normally be faced with nerfing the knockback so the stacking isn't overpowered and thus making the knockback [i]ignorable[/i] if there's a single opponent.
(Footnote for math purists: yes, we only consider the positive result from sqrt() because the negative one doesn't really make sense and can be ruled out.)
(Footnote for code junkies: The square root is actually not a computation issue since, for the most part, we're just using the result in a comparison and could well just square the number being compared to. For example, a mag of 10 is a squared mag of 100, so you compare the sum of the squares to 100 to determine if there's total control.)
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
I had to come back and re-read this this morning, as my mind was too sleep-deprived last night to comprehend more than 'Nggh...text...text big...'
However, after reading through it today, I like the concept. One of the things I liked about blasters in the later days of CoH is that even when held, I was able to do something. It was basically a 'partially held' state which I would have liked to see more of.
One effect of partial-Mez could be 'combat attribute' reductions. Recharge reduction has already been mentioned, but consider the effects of 'Stun' or partial-stun on Accuracy, Endurance recovery, or Damage.
One might argue that a stunned physical melee artist might do less Damage, but a shotgun-user is still going to do full damage to you, if he can get his boom-stick pointed in the right direction. So, Damage might be an edge-case when talking about Mez and partial-Mez,
Be Well!
Fireheart
Love the concept expanded by Lin. Great idea for having some kind of teaming powers.
I love this idea so far as I played a great many "squishy" archetypes in CoH, but among those squishies were a lot of Defenders (could never get behind Corruptors); reading these proposed partial mez numbers leaves me with a notable worry: How are dedicated Debuffers supposed to compete with that?
Not being terribly math savvy I always slotted my powers with SOs up to the Diminishing Returns softcap, the kind of numbers I achieved were in the field of -30-50% reduction in the effected statistic at my best (disclaimer: If I'm remembering correctly, it's been so long); what you propose is that enemies suffer -50% debuffs from getting even halfway to a complete hold, which would be reached in 1-2 stacks of the given mez, something my Controllers and Dominators could lay out in seconds with minimal effort.
Furthermore, more stacks of mez leading up to Total Control would debuff them beyond the range of what was possible by the average Defender back in CoH (I never explored the dark avenues of accumulating set bonuses and the unspeakable powers granted thereof).
I understand that the numbers you have thrown out there are for illustrative purposes, not yet a concrete proposal. I just decided I'd mention how this compares to Debuffing Defenders because nobody else has yet.
Again: Love this proposal and hope it makes it into the game, good idea!
The same way they did every night, Pinky ... by [b][url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzZmU0aGmcc]Trying To Take Over The World![/url][/b]
The point you're overlooking is that the Control Protection Inherent Power doesn't guard against Debuffs, but rather against Control Power effects. Not to put too fine a point on it, but ... Control Powers are merely a [b]subset[/b] of the Debuff Powers, rather than the reverse. So a Debuff that doesn't involve a Status Effect that can result in a Shutdown of a Character (like a Hold or a Sleep or a Stun would) isn't having to overcome a Power designed to prevent that Debuff from happening.
So how do Debuffers compete? Probably very well, I'm thinking.
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I like this idea but have a question about when the attack hits but doesnt beat the defenders Control Protection does the attack still do damage?
Most of the CoH Control powers also had a Damage component to represent the effect of being held (crushed in a block of ice, lifted into the air and slammed into the ground, etc) or immobilised (plants digging into your legs, ring of fire keeping you in place, etc), however if I am not held in a block of ice/slammed into the ground or immobilised then I am taking no damage...
?
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
I would think that any damage effects would be independent of mez effects, as they were in CoX. First you hit, then damage is applied, then the mez formula is applied (all instantly of course).
As for dedicated debuffers, I would think that controller and/or defender types would have higher base magnitudes on their powers (Controllers a x3 and defenders a x2, for instance), so they might start with a leg up on players with just the base mez defense. By the same token, Tanks and melee's would have powers that improve their base mez defense to "catch up" to the controller and defender effects. On some level, this would also apply to the NPC's we all face in PvE, but obviously would also apply for PvP actions.
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Yep. Just like if an attack does fire and smashing damage, if the target resists the fire damage it doesn't stop the smashing damage and vice versa.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Control Effects != Damage
Status effects as a result of Controls are independent of Damage ... just like in City of Heroes.
Controls deal Mag over a Duration in order to enforce a Status Effect.
Damage deals ... Damage to Hit Points.
These things are neither synonymous nor interchangeable, nor "dependent" upon each other for "permission" to happen. I suppose they COULD be set up to be that way (ie. only inflicts Damage if Total Control is achieved), potentially, for some power options where that might be warranted ... but I see no reason to just assume that would be the default baseline behavioral expectation for everything.
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There's actually a variety of ways things could work with the structure I've designed and built. Some combinations of Classification/Specification (ie. Primary/Secondary) could have a higher Power Multiplier, so the base "strength" of the Power is higher for them. Or they could have a higher Enhancement Multiplier, so they get more "mileage" out of Enhancements, slot for slot (cue ubiquitous YMMV* comments). Or they could have a higher base Duration making it possible to create a larger/deeper stack of Mag over time, rather than immediately.
Suffice it to say that there's enough "moving parts" to play with in my system that the risk of Cookie Cutterism™ has some pretty good mitigating factors going on against it (although Cookie Cutterism™ will NEVER be completely eliminated, and it's a Fool's Errand to even try for that maximalist an outcome).
[b]*[/b] [i]Your Mileage May Vary[/i]
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Happy that the damage portion wont be affected by the Control taking effect. I know things can be made to work like that but wanted to make sure we are ok with breaking the 'realism'.
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
Well, dagnammit woman, get out of my head :P
I came here to post my wonderful control mechanics idea that I've been throwing about since CoX days (yes, I actually posted an early version of this on the CoX boards) to find you'd basically already done it. Though since I technically posted it first, maybe I should say stop stealing my ideas? :P *note for sarcasm impaired - all the preceeding is highly tongue in cheek*
The only differences really is that there was no dead zone where control had no effect, but controls didn't just end, they decayed over time. So a control would always have /some/ effect, but less of that effect time would be spent within the "hard zone" of thumb twiddling.
So instead of a control power having a magnitude and a duration, it has a magnitude and a decay speed. Control defense has a range extension (requires more mag to get the same % of control) and a decay increaser, meaning the control fades faster.
So this gives the controlling player the two options: high mag, with quick decay versus low mag, slow decay
and the defending player the mirror versions: low threshold, quick decay or high threshold, slow decay.
An option closer to my original idea was to not have the defensive threshold changeable, nor have a variable decay rate on incoming controls. Which is less options in the building/slotting process, but available to all players would be a "stun breaker" power that would always be available (even when stunned) on say a 10-second CD. This would immediately reset your stun mag back to 0.
This would make the actual combats more dynamic, by adding a bit of brinkmanship to power timings. If you just unloaded everything you had onto a player (or npc mob, perhaps) then they'd just hit their breakout power and you'd be useless until everything recharged. If you just did enough to get them to use the breakout power, but held back your biggest controls, then you know you now have a 10-second window (or whatever) to go to town. How much do you commit to getting them to breakout, versus having enough left to do anything useful afterwards?
The two ways of doing it don't work together, unfortunately - a hard to control, slow to break out character with an immediate "I'm free" button is basically uncontrollable, and no one would use slow-build controls for the same reason.
So basically you have a choice of putting the counter-play in the slotting or the actual fight. I tend to prefer the latter myself, since there's already lots of decisions to be made when choosing powers and upgrades, and the fighting is where you'll be spending more of your time. I can see the arguments for both, and would probably play both, to be honest :P
Oh, and thank you Lin for the wonderful RMS idea for diminishing returns! I'm so remembering that trick for some of my game system designs :D And I'd go so far as to say /all/ buffs to the same stat should have some kind of system like that applied to them, though I think after the purple patch and ED that's pretty common wisdom :P
Betcha they nerf accuracy in the first patch...
I'm generally not one in favor of significant changes. That said, I see merit in the ops suggestion. Control was always a form of debuff anyway when few at the spawn level rather than the individual foe. Assuming I understand correctly you intend something like this......
Immob applying progressively great slow effect until sufficient mag accrues to enforce the immob.
Sleep applying progressively greater of -percep until the sleep takes hold.
That sort of thing?
If so it makes controls less binary. It would give a valid reason for enhancing secondary effects. It would give folks a reason to take that one mez in the powerset, even if they can't stack it solo.
It could potentially mean that a mez power would still be useful in a fight against a foe with protection to that mez, UNLESS the mez and debuff protection are matched which does not necessarily have to be.
For eg.....that Paragon Protector might be immune to sleep but NOT to -percep.
-joe
Repeat Offender
Tank Addict
Homeless.
We make every pretense of competency around here ... ^_~
I wasn't even locking down the effects that tightly, Joe. That's merely one option for how to run things, where the basic notion is gradually increasing degrees of impairment in a Partial Mez state until reaching "lockdown" at a Total Mez state. There are other alternatives, depending on how boolean/binary a Mez system you want to run (although, granted, I didn't put any detail into those other alternatives) such as using the "degree" of Partial Mez as a random "chance to" have the Mez take (full) effect for the (full) duration. Needless to say, I find the "random" option for Partial Mez here less satisfying, because it puts things back into a boolean/binary Mez system state, but it is an alternative.
But yes, the Mez system that I'd want to play in would have three states ... No Mez, Partial Mez, and Total Mez. The No Mez and Total Mez states would be familiar to anyone who played City of Heroes since they are effectively the legacy continuation of the old system ... but the middle state, the Partial Mez, would be new, and it would form a gradient transition between No Mez and Total Mez so as to represent an "impaired" state without resorting to a "lockdown" condition.
So your supposition for how my system would work is essentially correct.
The biggest advantage that I see for my system is (as I've mentioned before) that it doesn't presuppose that Melee Archetypes are uniquely eligible for "special" Mez Protection Powers which created the "squishy" versus "non-squishy" disparities in City of Heroes. Instead, the issue of Mez Protection is a matter of Enhancement Slot investment available to ALL builds and Classification/Specification combos in City of Titans, making it something universal and "inherent" to any build ... but also something that would need to be "paid for" in terms of slotting choices if it is to be effective and return value. Thus it would be possible to create a Mind Control character who is [i]passively[/i] highly resistant to Mez Powers themselves, because they've "invested" in mental shields and {insert fluff text excuses here}.
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I must say I REALLY like this idea for a bunch of reasons.
I never liked the binary Mez states. They were either useless or OP...never in-between.
You can simulate the 'squishyness' of non-armored/shielded toons without sacrificing mobility. Using Red's Mind Control example immediately above, you could build a character resistant to Mez (so they can keep moving/fighting) but without the piles of defenses that melee toons often consider 'their thing' (so the character can be defeated). Any mentalist or mage toon simulates this idea very well. Don't hit them with (fill in their specialty effect), slug them with a wrench instead!
This works for enemies too so that you can still pile on Mez to some effect (so Control isn't rendered worthless against EBs/AVs) but it'll be nigh impossible to completely shut them down (maintaining the challenge).
This can also be tweaked for balance if need be. A 'pure' control AoE (does Immob only) might be more effective (say 100% Immob unslotted) than a fiery Immob that does damage that might have 75% Immob and therefore need an Immob slot to completely halt the enemy. This means that the 'pure' controls still have a place in the late game (they're better at Mezzing the EBs/AVs) where the hybrid Mez/damage and damage/debuff AoE powers dominated the field before.
Yeah, lots of potential there...
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
I tend to be okay with the duration of a debuff effect to be MORE constant than the magnitude.. but the strongest variable in this argument will be the "cool down" period for control powers vs the average duration.
In general I like your system as I am understanding it. For all magnitude (numbers) changes I support only flat and multiplicative bonuses (Never exponential bonuses). That being said there is a lot of question in what role control powers play for roles that are NOT debuffing. The same can be said for all build limitations.. to many factors out there.
- -
The things both of our proposed systems have is a quality (not quantity) based control system that has (maybe even encourages) stacking debuffs. The factors of any debuff are the magnitude (how effective, term (length of time), and cool down)… but the MOST important part of any control system (At least the part players complain the most about) isn't how controls are applied.. it's how they are resisted/diminished. Not just in what way the resistance is taken per build but the actual mechanics of what actions are available to characters who are mezzed to resist it.
I don't have an answer for resist mechanics but both sides of the coin need to be presented.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
/em grins happily
Agreed, hence why I want to "fix" that problem for City of Titans, and do so in a way that creates a more complex meta-game for Mez than the boolean/binary states allowed for.
This is why I want to set things up such that it is possible to enhance either the Magnitude (Debuff Enhancement) or the Duration (Control Duration Enhancement), but not both using a single Enhancement slot so as to make this sort of question more of a value judgement on the part of the Player, along with the (obligatory) Recharge Reduction Enhancement.
Hence why I attempted to answer that sort of question pre-emptively with my proposal, so as to offer both Measure as well as Countermeasure.
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