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Types of Boosts

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Radiac
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Types of Boosts

I've read posts by devs on this site that the Inspirations we had in CoX will have an analog in CoT called "Boosts". Apparently the way it will work (or at least the current working model) is that when we fight, we will build up "Momentum" not unlike when you combo stuff together in other games, land punch 1, and then punch2, it makes punch 3 better which then causes you to go nuts with roundhouse superkick 4. Then after combat is over, momentum tapers off and as that happens, "Reserves" build up. Reserves building up causes us to then get (different? randomized?) Boosts added to our Boost tray, which would then work like Insps from CoX.

If any part of the above is wrong or incomplete, or if I'm getting the vocabulary confused, let me know.

Now, the exact nature of the Boosts is what I want to talk about here. In CoX, it bothered me that you could up your damage, defense, and resistance with Insps. I would have expected the only Insp functions to be "heal hit points", "heal endo points", "end mez effects on you", and "rez you". These are the four areas where a Boost can be helpful without having to impose an artificial limit on how many of them stack with each other, etc, so these are really the "panic buttons" of the Boosts, which is what I would want them used for, personally. I personally don't like having to (or even just being able to) make my toon hit harder via the use of these things. People tend to become dependent on that stuff, they jack up their difficulty to the point where they're like "okay, I pop three of these and two of those, then charge in and get everything defeated before the Insps wear off". I'd rather they were just "in case of emergencies, use Insp" not "You need this to be able to take this mob in the first place".

Maybe sell the +Damage, +Accuracy, +Resistance, and +Defense ones in the store for money, or have them drop (RARELY) from badguys, but don't have them be "bread and butter ubiquitous" like they were in CoX. I think this would be good as a fairly harmless fake money sink in the auction house and/or real money maker for the game store. If you want to give players the ability to "reach back for a little something extra" once in a while, use powers like Aim and Build Up for that mostly, and then let the big spenders have their power pellets if they want them, only in much shorter supply than CoX had. That's how I'd do it.

Edit: If there are going to be Boosts that increase Damage, Accuracy, Resistance and/or Defense, I would want them to be so precious and expensive that most players tend to save them up for use ONLY in the toughest boss fights, like when a certain specific boss is known to be resistant to your personal damage type, THAT'S when you finally break them out, because they're too expensive or hard to obtain to use them more often than that.

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I can't speak to most of your

I can't speak to most of your post, but the term we're using for what you're discussing is "Reserves." "Boosts" are things applied to your powers to make your powers better.

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Boosts has been internally

Boosts has been internally replaced with Improvements - which is anything that improves any aspect of a character or power.

As to your concerns Radiac, I try to answer and be vague as Reserves probably deserves an update all its own.

Radiac wrote:

or have them drop (RARELY) from badguys

Reserves don't drop from bad guys.

Since Reserves don't drop, but are built up during cool down periods between combat, which requires Momentum to be built up during combat. The system feeds into itself. If a Reserve improves offensive capability, it makes combat faster, therefore reducing the amount of Momentum built, which in turn means less Reserves being built up after offensive Reserves are used.

Reserves are more than just panic buttons. If they were we would have to define "what are the specific moments of panic in this game?" and then limit Reserves only for those moments. An example would be "low health" for a heal. Players can use some Reserves in a panic situation, or they can call upon their Reserves for an all out effort prior to an engagement. Both methods are viable strategies that we don't need to take away.


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Okay, thanks for the update

Okay, thanks for the update on the vocabulary. Can you tell me anything about the spirit in which the Reserves will be intended to work, that is, are the reserves supposed to be a "fuel tank" type thing that basically refills itself after a single fairly large, fairly tough mob of minions is defeated, thus allowing people to chain together strings of "defeat mob, generating Momentum, then come down from that Momentum rush and scoop up the reserves, then use those reserves to heal up regain endo and buff up the damage and defense immediately before running in and tackling the NEXT mob, rinse repeat"?

Because to me, I could see making self-heal Reserves and endo recharge Reserves work like that, I mean that just keeps the fun times rolling forward, but the +damage and +defense stuff, I think, should probably refill WAY slower. If the +Damage reserve fills as fast as the self heal one and the endo one, you're basically telling people "You're operating at nerfed dps UNTIL you get your reserve tank full so you can turn on the turbo boosters and go at your REAL operating damage output, but managing that buzz takes some regulating to get it right".

For damage and defense, I'd rather it were a thing whereby you know it's there when you REALLY need it, but you can't use it all the time because it's so precious. So you wouldn't use those reserves when dealing with the garden-variety minion mobs, but maybe you burn that stuff when you get to the end boss for that mission, or maybe you save it for a different mission entirely. On a TF, you might try to save the +Damage and +Def reserves for the final boss fight, for instance, as opposed to using it in basically EVERY fight.

Also, are these reserves basically discrete objects that one "uses" by hitting a function key one time, or are they like a fluid that you press a function key to use in amounts proportional to how long you hold down the button (like flushing coolant in MechWarrior IV)? If they work like fluids, I would want the damage and defense juice to fill way slower than the endo and self heal juice.

Edit: I think it's a more interesting and engaging game if you have to economize your reserves, whereas just always using them all the time seems more boring to me.

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A thought occurred to me. If

A thought occurred to me. If Reserves is like a "generic fluid" that can be used to do your choice of heal, recover endo, +damage, or + defense, you might generate Reserves at some specified rate as your Momentum clears, which would imply that you COULD use that Reserve fluid for +damage OR for healing, depending on what you need at the time. If THAT is the case, I think we need to talk about how much healing/endo you get per "ounce" of fluid versus how much added damage you get per "ounce". In this case I think the damage and defense buff functions should cost more fluid when used than other functions do. Then there's the question of how much fluid a discrete thing like Awaken or "Break Free" would cost. And for those effects you might have different specific types of rez depending on what level your reserves are at when you do it.

Also, if Reserves works like a fluid, I think using it to rez yourself should always use up ALL of your stored fluid when you do it and give a rez of better quality based on how much reserve fluid you ended up wasting. If your reserves were full, or nearly so, maybe you get the "good" rez with no "stun" afterward AND a brief period of "invulnerability" or "phased out until you manage to situate yourself", while rezzing with very little fluid left would leave you stunned and at like 1 hit point and a ripe target for attackers. This would cause people to try not to get defeated more, which is good. It also causes people to want healer-based rez powers still, which is also good.

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Awwwww, I liked stacking

Awwwww, I liked stacking inspirations

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Brighellac wrote:
Brighellac wrote:

Awwwww, I liked stacking inspirations

I know, I know.....

My thinking is thus:

Endo and hit point reserves are good because they basically allow you to circumvent the dreaded "Rest" power that CoX had, so for as far as that goes, great, I'm all for it. Also, you have a built-in maximum HP total and maximum endo total already.

Rez and Break Free reserves are inherently non-stackable because all they do is reverse the effects of something bad that already happened.

But for the "combat effectiveness" reserves, I'd rather not have to mash those function keys before EVERY fight, and I think it would be better to have to think about when to use them and when to save them up. Since there's not an apparent, visible, constant "damage cap", any stacking rules you might come up with for these things are artificial and placed in there only to limit how UBER you can actually get, how often you can get that way, and for how long. All of this has to be tweaked for best results by the devs, of course. I'm just saying, I like to save these ones up for the BIG fight at the end, not use them all the time.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

A thought occurred to me. you might generate Reserves at some specified rate as your Momentum clears,

Everything is flexible, We can designate one type of Reserve requires more or less Momentum than another if we need it to work that way. This gives us a way to fine tune each type of Reserve to provide parity.

Brighellac wrote:

Awwwww, I liked stacking inspirations

You will still be able to do that, just using more of a particular Reserve. Reserves will increase in the amount you can fill over levels, the more that is used, the better the result. And there are other methods for 'stacking' that are possible, but that will have to wait for the update.


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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

Brighellac wrote:
Awwwww, I liked stacking inspirations

I know, I know.....
My thinking is thus:
Endo and hit point reserves are good because they basically allow you to circumvent the dreaded "Rest" power that CoX had, so for as far as that goes, great, I'm all for it. Also, you have a built-in maximum HP total and maximum endo total already.
Rez and Break Free reserves are inherently non-stackable because all they do is reverse the effects of something bad that already happened.
But for the "combat effectiveness" reserves, I'd rather not have to mash those function keys before EVERY fight, and I think it would be better to have to think about when to use them and when to save them up. Since there's not an apparent, visible, constant "damage cap", any stacking rules you might come up with for these things are artificial and placed in there only to limit how UBER you can actually get, how often you can get that way, and for how long. All of this has to be tweaked for best results by the devs, of course. I'm just saying, I like to save these ones up for the BIG fight at the end, not use them all the time.

I have to disagree, Radiac. Different playstyles lead to different usage of inspirations. (I am using inspirations here because we still don't know a lot about how Reserves will work). Some people only used them when the fight was tough enough that not using them probably meant defeat. Others used them every fight. Both are viable methods of using the boosts inspirations provided. You like to save them up for a big boost at the end, fine. That's your preference. Someone else might like using a small defense or damage inspiration every fight (assuming they have one at the ready) and save the bigger ones for tougher fights. Still another person might like using their entire tray, every fight. (They'd run out really fast)

You say that you would "rather not have to mash those function keys before EVERY fight". Who is forcing you to do that? If you want to save all of your inspirations for the climactic fight at the end, go ahead and do so. And if someone else uses theirs more frequently so they're more effective on the road to the archvillain but don't have the same depths of reserves that you do in the final fight, that's their call to make.

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Tannim ... have you

Tannim ... have you considered making it possible to "spend" Reserves to create Inspirations? That way, rather than having Inspirations randomly drop, instead they are generated by Player demand using resources that need to be built up over time. That way, if you know in advance that you need a particular sort of Inspiration (for example), you can generate that type from your Reserves, rather than needing to rely on having it either drop or needing to combine your way into getting it.


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Well we won't have

Well we won't have inspirations, Reserves are this game's version of that. Reserves don't drop so there isn't a direct corelation of i need d to drop so i can do y.
Reserves aren't a single bank, there are multiple types of Reserves you can fill. As far as the capability to swap one type of Reserve for another, let's wait for the official update for the details : D.


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From what Tannim222 is saying

From what Tannim222 is saying, it sounds like it will act more like a fluid than a discrete type of thing, if that analogy holds, and beyond that it will maybe be a set of different types of fluids. So like, "Press F1 to flush hit point coolant and heal, press F2 to flush endo coolant and recover endo back,etc". My assumption from there is that whenever you start to lose momentum, all of your fluids recharge a little, but not necessarily at the same rate. Also, the "tanks" that contain the fluids might not be the same size.

To Mendicant's point, what I'm trying to say is, I think the Reserves are more robust and interesting if the devs can rightly assume that they won't be used literally all the time. That is, if at least the "combat effectiveness buff" ones are not basically always full when you go to start a fight every time. That, to me, is like having infinite ammo or something. Maybe fun for a lark once in a while, but makes the game boringly easy, such that, in response to the "its too easy" problem, the devs will likely make the mobs harder to compensate, and then EVERYONE will need to expend their reserves to buff up for every mob or else be seriously gimped by their own "play style choice", not that I expect anyone to actually do that. And if you have basically a full tank of reserves (of all kinds) after each mob is defeated, whether people want to use it or not, they should, because if that's how it works, the designers will have to take that into account and design mobs accordingly. So the people who CHOOSE not to expend their reserves and let the unused reserves basically go to waste are only hurting themselves and dragging the team down in the process, so they don't. Why would they?

What I'm saying is, if the game makes the "use Reserves before every mob, then fully regain them at the end" a viable tactic, it will instantly become the ONLY viable tactic. Thus, I would prefer that the "combat buff" reserves NOT work like that. I know some people look at this and think to themselves "but but but, more damage is better, I want 'better', why would anyone NOT want 'better'???!?!?" and my response to that is "if the devs expect everyone to be churning through a full tank of reserves on each mob, they'll make the mobs as tough as they need to be in accordance with that, so your "added damage" is totally gone because the mobs difficulty has been pre-scaled to match it as the new expected norm"

Now, on the other hand, if the devs can expect us to be running without those combat buff reserves the majority of the time, they'll keep the mobs to a level commensurate with the non-buffed state of the player and then when you DO use the buff, you can feel a palpable difference in your effectiveness while it's in effect. That comes at the cost of making the combat buff reserves a lot more precious and causes us to have to think carefully about when to use them and when not to, because you only get so much of it so quickly, it's not just always there. That 's what I want, I want the combat buff reserves to FEEL like they're doing something for me, and not like they're barely letting me keep my head above water because the mobs were designed assuming full combat buff reserves all the time. It's not really an "occasional" buff if it's there basically all the time.

If they do give us "use it all the time" style combat buff reserves and they DON'T scale the difficulty of the mob's accordingly, then that, to me, is tantamount to a big red Easy Button (TM). Too easy, game not interesting. Ho, hum I won again, who cares....

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Radiac wrote:

I'm with Mendicant on this. CoX didn't make it a requirement that we use insps before every battle; they just gave us the option. (Personally I found it useful for some characters and not for others.) If a player thought that made the battle too easy, he could choose not to use them. I'm very wary of suggestions to remove options to favour a particular preferred style of play, especially when there's nothing preventing that style of play while still offering the option to those who wish to play otherwise.

Spurn all ye kindle.

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I could see how

I could see how 'crystallizing' some of your Reserves during more extended downtime, in anticipation of later need, might be a useful mechanic. So you might practice a bit, running your Momentum up and down, and gathering Reserves. I can imagine situations where you might not have enough Reserve 'volume' to handle a fierce situation. That said, Reserves, regardless of form, are clearly 'character-bound'.

On the other hand, I can't tell you how many times I've sighed with relief because a teammate dropped an Awaken on me, after a particularly bad encounter. That aspect of team/community interdependence seems valuable to me. In open-world areas, the help could come from a level 1, as easily as it could a 50. Are we, then, going to give every character some form of 'Revive' power?

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Fireheart wrote:
Fireheart wrote:

On the other hand, I can't tell you how many times I've sighed with relief because a teammate dropped an Awaken on me, after a particularly bad encounter. That aspect of team/community interdependence seems valuable to me. In open-world areas, the help could come from a level 1, as easily as it could a 50. Are we, then, going to give every character some form of 'Revive' power?

That's something I hadn't considered before, and I agree it was a big part of how game mechanics encouraged that community spirit we miss so much. I hope MWM will take this into account.

Spurn all ye kindle.

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Actually, the BIG Question is

Actually, the BIG Question is "How do you handle Unique Inspirations, like the ones you used to Fight Hamidon, or the Eden Trail's AV?"
Do they Drop as a One Time Use Temp Power, that can stack (that shows a small number in the corner with the remaining usage count).

Sorta like Snowman Temp Pets? ;)
Or even the Abandoned Sewers Trial Ray guns?
But, acts like a Unique Inspiration Buff on Self, or AoE team based. :)

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A superhero game without

A superhero game without Wakies does seem like it would be missing something.

On the flipside ... setting up each PC with their own self-rez would obviate the need for Medical Teleporters to a certain extent.

For extra bonus amusement, it would be "cute" if the typical mob behavior was to pick up PC "corpses" and carry them back to the start of the instance and dump them ... creating the necessary "Safe Rez" space that would otherwise be assumed by a Hospital. Needless to say, after "dumping the body" (cue ragdoll funzies) the mobs would just return to their spawn point.

Problem is, there are going to be situations where even this solution isn't going to suffice, either because mobs have been trained to park at the dumping zone or whatever, creating an impassable wall of opposition, which was even known to happen in City of Heroes.


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How about a CPR/Resuscitation

How about a CPR/Resuscitation power that everyone has access to? Maybe require you to spend some of your personal reserves to perform it?

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Let's not forget that the

Let's not forget that the Inspirations drops in CoX were pseudo-random, this Reserves system does not, as far as I can tell, have any randomness to it, either in terms of how much reserves you get or what kind.

In CoX, you could go around fighting and chew through Insps as soon as they dropped, that's true, and I have no problem with THAT, but in this system proposed, it sounds like you're going to not only have a fairly constant influx of reserves, but a constant influx of reserves OF ALL KINDS.

In CoX, you couldn't BANK on getting enough Damage Insps to keep your damage maxxed, per se. In this system, it sounds like that COULD happen, if the Damage reserve refills quickly enough. And I'd like to avoid that. I'd rather that Damage Reserve be just what the name implies: a Reserve that you only dip into when you're in really dire need.

I have no problem with people using whatever reserves they have before a fight starts, but I don't want people to get a completely full "tank" after each mob. I'd rather a system where the combat buff reserves take many, many mobs to fill up to their maximum capacity, probably a whole mission map, maybe longer. And don't forget, the Momentum that's building as you fight may have a buff effect on your attacks as well, so the toon that has just buffed up with combat reserves AND has full momentum now is getting the best of both worlds and is probably hitting all kinds of hard caps for that reason. If this isn't done right, it could eliminate the need for decent Improvements to a large extent.

I'm sure the devs won't err on the side of "too easy" or "too hard", I trust them and our own beta testing to get it right in the end, but I would caution that you can always improve on the system (if it feels too restrictive or harsh) after the fact. You need to AVOID getting people used to the "better" version before taking it away for the sake of balance and replacing it with the "disappointingly worse" version. There's practically ALWAYS the desire to "make my toon PWN more, please!", you have to draw the line somewhere on that. That line should not be "unlimited reserves all the time, reserves refill completely after dropping on minion, reserves are the fuel that drives you forward" IMO, but rather more like "you want to save up your reserves for when you really need them, because they're really good, but they fill slowly and should only be dipped into for special occasions, like end bosses and giant monsters, etc".

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

For extra bonus amusement, it would be "cute" if the typical mob behavior was to pick up PC "corpses" and carry them back to the start of the instance and dump them ... creating the necessary "Safe Rez" space that would otherwise be assumed by a Hospital. Needless to say, after "dumping the body" (cue ragdoll funzies) the mobs would just return to their spawn point.

roflmao!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I absolutely LOVE this idea! Genius! Pure genius!

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Izzy wrote:
Izzy wrote:

Actually, the BIG Question is "How do you handle Unique Inspirations, like the ones you used to Fight Hamidon, or the Eden Trail's AV?"
Do they Drop as a One Time Use Temp Power, that can stack (that shows a small number in the corner with the remaining usage count).
Sorta like Snowman Temp Pets? ;)
Or even the Abandoned Sewers Trial Ray guns?
But, acts like a Unique Inspiration Buff on Self, or AoE team based. :)

I would assume this gets handled via temp powers instead. That or while in the TF, you get a SPECIAL Reserve tank for the Ambrosia or what have you which only lasts until it is used up or until the TF is over, whichever comes last. This would be a cool way to get people to do more trials, you do it just to re-open and fill your Ambrosia reserve, like going to get more jellomen, etc.

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Clever notion Radiac.

Clever notion Radiac.

/em approve


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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

Izzy wrote:
Actually, the BIG Question is "How do you handle Unique Inspirations, like the ones you used to Fight Hamidon, or the Eden Trail's AV?"
Do they Drop as a One Time Use Temp Power, that can stack (that shows a small number in the corner with the remaining usage count).
Sorta like Snowman Temp Pets? ;)
Or even the Abandoned Sewers Trial Ray guns?
But, acts like a Unique Inspiration Buff on Self, or AoE team based. :)

I would assume this gets handled via temp powers instead. That or while in the TF, you get a SPECIAL Reserve tank for the Ambrosia or what have you which only lasts until it is used up or until the TF is over, whichever comes last. This would be a cool way to get people to do more trials, you do it just to re-open and fill your Ambrosia reserve, like going to get more jellomen, etc.

Hmm... instead of a Temp Reserve thats Perma Bound to you, wouldnt you rather have a Temp Ambrosia Power that you can Stack, and even trade in the Action House? :)

This way, MWM can also Sell Self Buff based Temp Powers as well? :D

So, like in the Sims, when you're Crafting ability reaches a certain amount, you can make Larger and Larger self buff Trad-able Reserves that act like temp powers. ;}

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You could probably do both if

You could probably do both if you wanted to. Have a temp Ambrosia reserve that get's created when you hit the Ambrosia part of the trial, then lasts until you use it up, but also have some sort of re-sellable items that either drop at random (like special Synthetic HamiOs at the end) or some kind of "click the glowwie and get a prize" type things that you can the sell off afterward, or keep, like a temp power that gives you some advantage to be used against the end boss, but could be useful outside the trial as well. Pet summon, self buff, special "anti-psionic octopus" gun, etc.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

You could probably do both if you wanted to. Have a temp Ambrosia reserve that get's created when you hit the Ambrosia part of the trial, then lasts until you use it up, but also have some sort of re-sellable items that either drop at random (like special Synthetic HamiOs at the end) or some kind of "click the glowwie and get a prize" type things that you can the sell off afterward, or keep, like a temp power that gives you some advantage to be used against the end boss, but could be useful outside the trial as well. Pet summon, self buff, special "anti-psionic octopus" gun, etc.

Red Reserve gives you Wings! ;D

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If it's calibrated properly,

If it's calibrated properly, burning through a full tank of reserves in one fight will make the fight go so quickly that you won't build up the momentum to refill them. At least, for most fights.

Conversely, if you go through a long slog of a fight, you'll probably leave it with full reserves, so you can power through the next one a bit faster.

As always, note that this is very broad strokes here, not discussing any particular details. The precise numbers will likely require playtesting to get right.

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Can i make my liquid Reserves

Can i make my liquid Reserves condensed? Like Condensed Milk? ;)
ex:

Lore wise, i think referencing Reserves as being Liquid based might work.
I'm not a RolePlayer, but on 1st thought, I default to Science and Magic.
If I can explain it in Magic and Science, it PASSES in my book. ;D

.. Magic being a sort of Magic Potion?
.. Science being a sort of Syringe Shot?

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I agree that it will take

I agree that it will take playtesting to get it right en the end. For one thing, we don't even know what Momentum will do for us while it's "up" and without that, you don't know what the combined effect of full momentum and a full dose of Reserves might to do for you.

As to Izzy's idea of "condensing" the Reserve juice, that's really no different than making the tank bigger. I mean, if 50% full means "50 reserve points" that's one thing, if it means "500 reserve points" that';s something else, but it still looks like 50% either way. So intensifying the potency of the fluid by reducing and concentrating it is no different than just making the container bigger in the first place, mathematically. So instead of being used to flushing Reserves and emptying the tank in one shot, you might get maximum strength out of a dose that represents only 10% of the total tank size at a time.

In any event there are a lot of numbers to consider with this, Momentum will be a bar of its own that will have a number value, and presumably the higher that bar is kept and the longer time it is kept up there the more Reserves you'll harvest when you come down from that. Beyond that, each Reserve type might fill at a different rate (in terms of Momentum*time ran off per point of Reserve gained). They might all fill independently of each other or they might be competing with each other for the Momentum runoff. Presumably Reserves are permanent once gained, but even that might be subject to "long term decay" whereby the reserve peters out slowly on its own if not used or refilled for say, a couple hours. It's possible the reserve gain rates for different things can be affected by powers, Improvements, set bonuses, etc. Its possible that different classes might have their different reserve types fill at different rates. A lot of variables.

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I think one philosophical

I think one philosophical question in this area is important enough to be addressed: are Reserves supposed to act like a limited reserve of added "oomph" that you can draw upon when in dire need (which I maintain means either when you're in the thick of a fight and need some added boost, or maybe right before you dive in against the end boss whom you KNOW is going to be tough, etc), or are Reserves, as designed, going to operate more like a "power pill" that you pop right before starting EACH fight you get into on a regular basis.

If it's the "use all the time" version, I think I can see the way this system would get used, you fight to build Momentum which increases your combat effectiveness while it's up. Then as your Momentum drops, you harvest the run off and your Reserves fill up. Then, since you won't have any Momentum at the BEGINNING of the next fight, you use your Reserves to buff up at the start of the next fight, and by the time the reserves wear off, you've got your Momentum up again. So you basically just keep shuttling the same amount of "conserved energy" back and forth between Reserves and Momentum. If this is the paradigm, I think the devs need to make sure that the Reserves wear off as soon as or close to the point where the Momentum is re-established. Thus limiting the amount of time during which you can have BOTH Reserve buffs and Momentum buffs in effect, assuming they stack. Assuming that system is tweaked well for power balance, it should be okay, but then I think "Reserves" is not an appropriate name for what they are. Boosts would be better. And whatever you call them, there's still the issue of people waiting until their momentum is maxxed and THEN using the Reserves in order to get a double dip of awesomeness. That would have to be thought of and the rules tweaked to avoid overpowered brokenness.

If it's the "use sparingly" version, then I think the combat buff type Reserves (+damage, +Accuracy, +Def, +Resist) ought to fill so slowly that you have to save them up over many fights before you can then empty the tank and use them against the boss or whatever. If this is how they work, Reserves makes more sense as a name. In this scenario, it's probably more acceptable to have the Momentum and Reserve buffs stack for some time because you're only able to use the Reserves after a long time spent building them up.

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Radiac due to the nature of

Radiac due to the nature of how different sets will operate and how ayers can optimize for ephiciency it may be possible to bukld both Momentum and have Reserves going at ghe same time. There isn't a necessity to make them punitive with respect to one another because players can design a build well. Every classification and therefore every power set is designed to operate within bounds of performance this includes those who may eventualy reach those potential upper bounds.


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Ok thanks, Tannim222. I

Ok thanks, Tannim222. I think you've convinced me that all this really IS being looked at. My original concern was that some/many people will be able to use Reserves all the time (and right there the sentence "use Reserves all the time" already sounds like they're not really acting like a reserve, but rather the basic fuel of combat) along with Momentum while it's up to hit those performance hardcaps like most/all the time. I think maybe when you're at the maximum character level (and by that I mean the maximum projected character level, not just the max attainable in the game when it goes live) and you have the most efficient Improvements, and you did your build well, then you just barely get there in terms of having hard-capped performance numbers for some significant period of time during most fights.

Because if it ends up like "You're level 10 and with only common, generic improvements in your blast attack it's still hardcapped a lot because of the momentum and reserve combo." then that's a problem, I think you would agree. For one thing it leaves one without any good reason to put "better" improvements in the powers, and for another the only thing to look forward to then is hitting the level cap so that you can get to the highest level of damage hardcap. Once at the level cap, assuming your Reserves and Momentum can bury the needle on your damage, there's no need to go do anything in the game to try to get rare swag or whatever because you're already beyond needing it.

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Radiac even if it were to be

Radiac even if it were to be possible at level 10 to somehow reach those upper bounds of performance - it would be the upper bounds of performance at level 10. Let's say that included constantly pushing into having Reserves and Momentum (I highly doubt it at this level but we're in hypotheticals here), it would 't really matter.

The underlying system mechanics for function uses the upper bounds of performance for determining function. Thats not to say that if some combination is "more readily capable" of this upper bound performance over time (because time is a factor that requires well time to accumulate data) then changes may be in order. The oppposite is true too. And a taking this a step further if it proves Reserves are over-all more available than intended we can make adjustments to the fill rates universally or if need be, individually.


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Reserves sounds like an

Reserves sounds like an interesting change in combat dynamics.
With reserves being accumulated only between, not during, combat,
players will no longer be able to continually refresh reserve/inspiration
affects from combat drops.

That might end up making self/team buffs even more valuable for
continual combat scenarios.

edit: ... and Radiac/Tannim discussion started while I typed up my comment. As with most things - wait and see what knobs and dials are used to tune the process

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Thanks again Tannim222 for

Thanks again Tannim222 for more reassurances. I find this Reserve/Momentum thing fascinating and it has so many moving parts that it really draws me in into thinking about specifics which won't be available until the game actually goes live, so for now I can only speculate (and salivate). I know a lot of what I'm saying amounts to "Please don't do it badly." and for that I apologize for the implication that you might not do it well. I totally get that everyone is doing their due diligence on this problem and thank you for that reassurance.

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Me too, I find it interesting

Me too, I find it interesting as well.

All I can think about is the buildup of momentum, concerning a drawn out AV fight.
Needless to say, i wonder how momentum will be used in a Non-AV group fights as well.

Just going by my own play-style, I would imagine using up majority of the Momentum bar to show off with a Finisher attack power.
Well, depending on my Stats, like Health.. if kinda low.. i might refrain from using up Momentum and allow someone else on team steal my kill.

Side Note: Yea... I was one of those guys that was 1st in, and had the Last Attack that finished of the last enemy standing, with some careful timings. Well, when i was playing a Brute/Scrapper/... and even some Corruptor's. ;D

Maybe this is a misconception by me, but when I think of Momentum.. and how it will lend itself to my play-style, I envision it a bit like having an endless supply of inspirations, the Higher in level i get that is.

Even though while im in the Midst of Battle, I'm using the Momentum.. but instead of filling the Reserve Tanks, its going towards Increasing the Status Effects and the like on the powers that I'm casting int he fight. So in a way, Momentum is like a Coin... Heads for times of Battle, Tails for times of Recup('eration).

This is just me making assumptions though. ;D
But I hope i'm not that far off the mark. ;)

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So far, my thinking about

So far, my thinking about Momentum has me think it will work something like this (maybe not for all classes, but maybe for one of them I don't know):

You have a Momentum bar that starts at zero and gains some points every time you land a hit on a target. Over time, it will slowly bleed off and as such you want to work to land hits so as to build it up before it goes away. As you land hit after hit and build your momentum, you might reach a level at which some bonus from one of your powers kicks in, like maybe your one punch attack has a clause in its description that says "Punch does X damage and has a chance to stun, but while your Momentum is at least Y, it get's added chance to stun, then at Momentum level Z it get's max chance to stun and also does knockdown." or some such. Assuming multiple attacks and other powers have Momentum dependent effects like that, you could get oodles of goodies while your Momentum is at a high level, but keeping it there requires targets and attacks, which requires Endo and will tend to cause you to take more damage etc. Then when the fight is over your Momentum bleeds off back to zero again while you're in "out of combat down time" and when that happens, your Reserves start to fill. You might need to use some reserves to heal damage faster and/or recover endo faster before starting the next fight. Assuming you can go through a typical minion mob fight without burning through any of your Reserves, you will come out of those fights having stored up some Reserves. Eventually, after some of those mobs, you might have totally full Reserves, at which point you can basically stealth through the rest of the mobs to get to the mission's end boss, pop Reserves and fight him and his mob, rebuilding Momentum in the process (woo-hoo, Reserves AND Momentum in effect...), and hope to walk away victorious and with a start on a new refill of Reserves to replace the tank you just emptied.

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Momentum used used for one of

Momentum used used for one of the Masteries for each classification. Some power sets will use it. Not every power set will use it at all other than building it. Some power sets may have a power that uses it, but it is not a feature of the sets main use. Momentum may be used in different ways, gain an improvement as it increases, gain incremental increases, or gain increase as momentum is burned. Burned momentum is not a natural decay and therefor does not refill reserves. The base line purpose of Momentum is for refilling Reserves, so every set benefits from building momentum, it is built as powers are used, not just attacks though, so buff focused primaries can built and even use momentum too (if the set is designed to use it in some way).


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OOOH more tasty details.

OOOH more tasty details. Thanks Tannim. I take it that "burning Momentum" as you put it is something like flushing coolant in MechWarrior, i.e. that it gives you some tangible immediate benefit while the trade-off in this case then is that you don't get Reserves from it.

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This isn't directly

This isn't directly applicable to all uses of it, but my general conception - which I find at least useful to keep in mind when picturing the overall picture of how it is to work - of Momentum is that it's the ability of a character to ramp up as a fight goes along. It's why super-fights follow a dramatic progression from opening relatively weak moves to mid-range stuff and on to big, impressive efforts at becoming finishers. The more you're going, the more "into it" you are and the more you can bring to bear.

That's what Momentum is supposed to help represent, at a thematic level.

There are other factors - health, endurance, even reserves, amongst others - which provide the counterweight: as a fight goes on, you start to lose other crucial resources.

Whether you are running out of steam before you build up a sufficient head of it or not depends on your build.

As said, not all builds will use Momentum as a mechanic; they will tend to be the kind that don't go for the Classic Epic Brawl style of combat, but use some other tactic. Rapid-strikers who move from fight to fight will not build up lots of Momentum, but the little they do without spending it will trickle into their Reserves, so they can do brief engagements repeatedly and suddenly break out with greater power (by tapping reserves) when they hit one that's actually an obstacle.

And I'm mostly rambling, at this point. The thing I'm trying to get across is the very broad, thematic idea; please don't read too much mechanical insight into this particular post.

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Thank you Segev for the

Thank you Segev for the thematic explanation, if that's how it ends up feeling in the game, it sounds good to me.

Edit: Can I assume that one would probably build more Momentum by repeatedly punching/shooting a lot of minions with individual attacks over time (the "Scrapper" method) than by simply Nuking them en masse with a single AoE (the "Fire Blaster" approach)? I seriously doubt anyone will go from zero to full Momentum in one big AoE like that, but I thought I'd ask. It sounds like the "processing mobs in series" approach will tend to lend itself to more Momentum gained and perhaps those types of classes will end up getting more ways to use it, whereas the classes that tend to "process mobs in batches" will tend not to get so much Momentum, which is a trade-off, but probably a fair one as you're able to douse a whole mob in fire AoE in one click as opposed to the non-AoE based guy who has to click more times to punch/zap each minion individuality.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

Let's not forget that the Inspirations drops in CoX were pseudo-random, this Reserves system does not, as far as I can tell, have any randomness to it, either in terms of how much reserves you get or what kind.
In CoX, you could go around fighting and chew through Insps as soon as they dropped, that's true, and I have no problem with THAT, but in this system proposed, it sounds like you're going to not only have a fairly constant influx of reserves, but a constant influx of reserves OF ALL KINDS.
In CoX, you couldn't BANK on getting enough Damage Insps to keep your damage maxxed, per se. In this system, it sounds like that COULD happen, if the Damage reserve refills quickly enough. And I'd like to avoid that. I'd rather that Damage Reserve be just what the name implies: a Reserve that you only dip into when you're in really dire need.
I have no problem with people using whatever reserves they have before a fight starts, but I don't want people to get a completely full "tank" after each mob. I'd rather a system where the combat buff reserves take many, many mobs to fill up to their maximum capacity, probably a whole mission map, maybe longer. And don't forget, the Momentum that's building as you fight may have a buff effect on your attacks as well, so the toon that has just buffed up with combat reserves AND has full momentum now is getting the best of both worlds and is probably hitting all kinds of hard caps for that reason. If this isn't done right, it could eliminate the need for decent Improvements to a large extent.
I'm sure the devs won't err on the side of "too easy" or "too hard", I trust them and our own beta testing to get it right in the end, but I would caution that you can always improve on the system (if it feels too restrictive or harsh) after the fact. You need to AVOID getting people used to the "better" version before taking it away for the sake of balance and replacing it with the "disappointingly worse" version. There's practically ALWAYS the desire to "make my toon PWN more, please!", you have to draw the line somewhere on that. That line should not be "unlimited reserves all the time, reserves refill completely after dropping on minion, reserves are the fuel that drives you forward" IMO, but rather more like "you want to save up your reserves for when you really need them, because they're really good, but they fill slowly and should only be dipped into for special occasions, like end bosses and giant monsters, etc".

As I recall, you are not guaranteed a 'full tank' after every fight. If I remember correctly, Reserves are refilled by bleeding off Momentum. And Momentum builds over the course of a fight. The longer you fight, the more Momentum you have to refill your Reserves once the fight is over. So, if you use your Reserves to up your combat potential for a fight, it ends faster due to your enhanced combat capability, thus leaving you with less available Momentum to refill your Reserves. It's self-limiting. Boost yourself with Reserves too much and you won't have any Momentum to refill those Reserves, forcing you to fight some battles without Reserves until you can generate enough Momentum to refill your Reserves again.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

Izzy wrote:
Actually, the BIG Question is "How do you handle Unique Inspirations, like the ones you used to Fight Hamidon, or the Eden Trail's AV?"
Do they Drop as a One Time Use Temp Power, that can stack (that shows a small number in the corner with the remaining usage count).
Sorta like Snowman Temp Pets? ;)
Or even the Abandoned Sewers Trial Ray guns?
But, acts like a Unique Inspiration Buff on Self, or AoE team based. :)

I would assume this gets handled via temp powers instead. That or while in the TF, you get a SPECIAL Reserve tank for the Ambrosia or what have you which only lasts until it is used up or until the TF is over, whichever comes last. This would be a cool way to get people to do more trials, you do it just to re-open and fill your Ambrosia reserve, like going to get more jellomen, etc.

I like this idea! *hands Radiac a cookie*

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Thank you. While we're all

Thank you. While we're all patting me on the back, I want to revisit the idea of draining all of one's Reserves to do a self rez (like the analog of a Wakie). I like this idea because it leaves everyone with a rez option that's not dependent on carrying around one or more "insurance wakies" like in CoX and then having to delete unnecessary ones as they would fill your tray, and I also like that you lose something tangible (transient, yes, but tangible) when you do it. I also like the ability to make the rez quality dependent on the amount of Reserves you have to lose. And I still think that making it "all or nothing" is good. You either use up ALL of your remaining reserves to spring back into action, or you don't. That way if you face-plant right afterwards again, you probably either can't self-rez again or else what you'd get would be the really low-quality rez where you're stunned for a long time and at 1HP and have nerfed Endo recharge, etc. Then you'd need TP away, hospital, or someone else on the team to rez you, etc.

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Makes me think of City of

Makes me think of City of Heroes "Tier 9 Nuke" Powers and how they might get implemented in City of Titans. Rather than crashing your Blue Bar and draining away all your END for a while, instead the "Nuke" Powers would require a full(ish) supply of Momentum, and would burn off pretty much all of that. In effect, "Nuke" Powers would be a Momentum "dump" which would rather effectively restrict their use to "sometimes, when appropriate" rather than merely being "at the beginning of every spawn group."


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Or allow nukes to have a

Or allow nukes to have a regular use and a charged up version that burns Momentum but has a huge pay off ;)


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Inspirations would sometimes

Inspirations would sometimes be the difference between life or death in PVP.

And sometimes when you wanted to seek revenge on that one player that caught you by surprise and pwned you, you would sneak out and buy ins, pop like 20 of them and slaughter them in two hits.

I can understand if some people want to control or limit these, but I think they were very useful sometimes so im all for "reserves"

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