Let me just preface this by saying that there's no way this'd be in at launch - it's just not a thing that'll happen. The topic of vehicles has come up a couple times before, and the general thing is that it won't be available at launch, if ever. That said, tossing out ideas like this is a way to get the devs interested in ways to implement such things, so I feel pitching it is still worthwhile on that end.
Onto the main topic, I gave it some thought and I think an interesting way to accomplish involving "vehicles" into a standard powerset would be by making something that breaks upon use. the way I see it, this would allow for several different power set options. Visually, this could also be an exciting type of character; as an example, what would [url=http://i.imgur.com/vJPPQ3u.jpg]Ghost Rider[/url] be without his bike? How about [url=http://i.imgur.com/P0LWz2b.png]a knight with a lance riding upon the back of a wyvern[/url]? Or a [url=http://i.imgur.com/lrV3SOR.jpg]girl riding in a small mech[/url]? Or what about even [url=http://i.imgur.com/oxarmfH.jpg]just a tank?[/url]
Vehicle options are pretty pervasive, but they suffer from difficulty in implementation in games and the like. In most cases, they aren't even real things; for instance, in World of Warcraft, a mount is little more than a visual, faster movement speed, and bragging rights. A few games that deal with mounts make more of a big deal about them - ArcheAge has you actually raise your mount, and Black Desert has horses, donkeys, elephants, and camels as separate creatures you can get up on top of to take you somewhere. Much, much rarer is the game that treats your vehicle or mount as an entity you can actually use in a fight; the only ones that come to mind are Overwatch, in which you can play as d.Va (one of my example pics at that) and Lair, for the PS3, in which you're a dragonrider. I'm hoping to avoid that being the case here.
The idea behind this is sort of an ablative power boost; when activated, the vehicle you're in/on gives you a power boost and extra HP, but once that HP is depleted you're ejected, and the toggle goes onto a fairly long cooldown, in which you wait for the vehicle to come back online; once it's back, you reactivate it and climb back in/on the vehicle you resummoned, giving you back the HP pool that it grants you. When both on and off the vehicle, you'd have the same powers, but for your vehicle powerset, it'd be more or less effective based on whether you're riding the vehicle at the time.
So, for example, a character of mine named Xenocraft. She's a technologist villain that salvages alien technology that's crash landed on earth in order to expand the designs she has available. when on the job, she rides around in a nine foot tall mech loaded for bear, usually using a shoulder mounted laser cannon as her primary form of attack, and has a kinetic shielding array. When her mech is too damaged to be usable, she ejects, and she swaps over to using a laser rifle instead of the cannon on her mech, and has a personal shielding device that isn't built into her mech but into her pilot suit. Both are smaller and less effective than the full size version, but they're better than nothing when the mech is in self-repair mode and she's waiting to climb back in.
I'm not precisely sure what the math on this would be, but it's a concept that makes sense to me and one I'd love to see implemented. As such, tossing it out here to see what happens. There's no way it'd be available on launch, but I figure I'll never see it implemented if I don't toss the idea at the devs. :)
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
Um, if the vehicle gives the character a 'boost', or even alters the play in some fashion, then a regular character, without a vehicle, is at a disadvantage. So, the next thing that happens is we add a whole new ruleset, on top of the regular game, so we can have 'vehicular combat' and... Champions shows us how much 'fun' that is.
Then there's the question of what sort of weird re-writing of reality has to be done, in order for someone to bring their 'rocket-bike' into the office-building instance... or the sewers, or street-sweeping in the Mall... It starts to get silly.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I think what Halae is looking for a set of powers to simulate a mechanical aid of some kind. One you pick instead of super punching or fire throwing.
I like the idea and it could be made to work. It could be a self buff set of powers that have no duration but would have its own health before needing to be re-activated. It could have all sorts of visual representations like steampunk armor with heavy steel plates and gears, mad science with tubes and electrical cables, sleek power armor a la anime mechs, chemicals being piped in like Batman's Bane, a heavily armored and bristling with guns segway, ect. Any kind of self buff could be in the set of powers.
This idea reminds me of Keldians with visual decoupling. Instead of looking like a lobster, you can choose power armor, etc.
If I read Halae right then this would be part of the primary/secondary pool thus you can balance it so that it's slightly above average when in vehicle but below average when out of vehicle. As long as the vehicle can only be "healed" by powers from the same pool that it itself came from (if even given any at all) then I think balancing wouldn't be that big of a problem, especially if calling it is several secs and damage interruptible.
Sure it will make the vehicle power mandatory among those sets but that power would also be the single reason for that set to even exist in that form.
Probably the same that would make "overdimensioned" characters or minions be able to, though in fairness they'll probably have to step it up one or two level.
On a more general note, unless MWM sticks to power armor, mechas and purely "body enhancer" (a.la Bane) kind of vehicles then I think this would run into the same problem as non-humanoid bodies runs into. Extra work due to more animations for anything that uses the body itself.
Though personally I don't think these kinds of "vehicles" will be different enough, compared to powers in general, to warrant the dev costs to implement them.
That's the idea, yeah. Find a quiet spot to resummon your super suit or your horse or something. I mean, you could probably get away with making a character like this without the vehicle, but it'd be like creating one of those petless Masterminds back in CoH; doable, potentially even good, but there isn't much reason for it.
I think they will, personally. I mean, if they're already going to have a jeep as part of a vehicle travel power or something, why not also make it flaming and capable of ramming people?
We do know people want a vehicle travel power to exist; this would basically just let us have it available as part of other powersets as well.
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
Have they really said that we'll get "vehicle travel powers", or were they just aesthetic options to flight, super speed, super jump and so forth? There is a big difference between the two since "vehicle travel" is not its own distinct travel method, it's just mechanical aid for all the other ones.
For travel alone there isn't any real reason, imo, to implement "vehicle travel" as its own distinct mechanic and/or powers. If all you want is to be able to ram people in a jeep or similar then having them as an aesthetic option for the Combat Movement pool would be sufficient.
Thinking more about your suggestion and taking other posters more into consideration makes me think that limiting this to only "vehicles" would be a bad move. Making it more so it's like a supercharge that gets expended with damage taken (like Brainbot alludes to) would be a better choice imo. If MWM decides to implement it then I think that will be the "presentation" of it since it has a much higher rate of "animation reuse", a form of supercharge that can be "internal" (serum, overloading cybernetics/clockworks etc) or "external" (combat vehicle, mecha, power armor etc). The less animations they need to do for this system specifically and the "wider" its usage potential is the more viable it becomes.
I've been thinking about the implementation of vehicles, too. But I was only thinking about them as a means of travel other than the usual fly, jump, port or speed. So I was thinking about Ghost Rider's motorcycle as a movement option, or Aladdin's magic carpet, or maybe even a genie or flock of flying monkeys that can carry you wherever you go. Other options could exist like Iceman with his icy ramp thing or the Silver Surfer and his board. But in these thoughts I always imagined that you would dismount/be dropped off when you got to your destination.
Then I read this and you got me thinking about travel powers that could be inherent to the character itself that we could add as part of character customization. Imagine making a character with a Whirlwind style lower body instead of legs. Imagine a Professor X in a wheelchair instead of walking around. Or Doctor Octopus. Imagine a robot character with a unicycle or single sphere type of lower body. Imagine a liquid character or a snake character that slithers. All kinds of options exists for characters who do not use legs, per se. Then there are options with more than two legs like an insect or arachnid character. I wouldn't expect any of these to come with power boosts, like you suggest, however. They would just be appearance-only modifications.
My biggest question about how to implement vehicles that provide power boosts as you suggest would be whether or not the boosts would apply in interior areas? Would you be able to ride inside, or have to leave the vehicle outside?
One way the developers could include power-boosting vehicles without having to rewrite the whole game is to use them in certain instances, like maybe on the moon or under water, in which the players have to be wearing a suit of power armor, or ride inside a vehicle for part of the mission. That can certainly be doable.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
The big "problem" is making vehicles, from a game mechanics PoV, distinctly different from run, jump, fly and port. Riding a motorcycle would be the same as running, outside of the visuals and possibly the max speed. The only way to make them distinctly different would be to make them combat capable, in that it either modifies or adds to your available powers while active.
Even if they are appearance only MWM would still need to build proper body types and make appropriate animations for each body type so it doesn't look like shit. And as has been said many times, more body types outside of humanoid is very unlikely to happen due to the cost in creating them (getting them up to par with existing bodies animation-wise) and the increased cost of future animation packs (more bodies = more animations needed).
Sure, vehicles at specific places where it would be "necessary" in general does make some sense but then we run into an immersion breaking part of "forcing" things onto a hero/villain that are not necessary to them specifically.
Gee whiz, Blacke4dawn, has anyone ever called you a buzzkill?
We can all think of reasons why it would be hard to do something. I thought the idea was to brainstorm about what would be cool, desirable or fun and let the developers tell us why they can't do it.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
*at the mere mention of the word "buzzkill" Radiac immediately appears in this thread, like [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGLDZyY6ubA]Lenny and Squiggy[/url] from "Laverne and Shirley"*
Hello!
Anyway, I think the idea of the vehicle-as-superpower, and not just for travel, would be very labor-intensive to pull off. I think it would require you to come up with animations and movement graphics, etc for every such type of vehicle as if it were a new character body type (which is kinda of what Overwatch did, right?) , and that's a lot of work spent trying to make that look good for just one vehicle. I mean, doing up a car would require a whole bunch of work done for stuff that ONLY applies to the car. Same for motorcycles, horses, etc.
If they do have vehicles, I would be satisfied with the CoX treatment, at least at first, that being the one where you just click on the Arachnos Flier or whatever and it magically transitions you to the next map via a cutscene.
Now, the idea of just having like a motorcycle as a travel power only, and one that suppresses your combat powers while on it (and probably provides faster long-distance travel than just super speed or something) seems less difficult to me. Maybe even making it a "super" cycle that can drive up walls or jump large distances wouldn't be too hard. You might even make something like that a craftable temp power instead of a normal character slot power. That way people might be less likely to spend two slots on travel powers, or at least they have more options, etc.
I think the plan is to give everyone a dedicated travel power slot so as not to have it affect combat or the build as much, and if you only get one travel power slot, then having temp powers as other options for fast travel might be good. Like you could take Fly if your character has wings and then have something else for getting around town a little faster if you want, like a cool superbike.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I think you're missing his point. We've been discussing these things on the forums for Years. The 'model proliferation' issue that was mentioned IS the problem that the Devs have with this idea.
You seem to be taking an 'oh, it'll be easy' attitude, but we've had it carefully explained that it is Not easy. So, nobody is targeting your 'buzz' with the intention of killing it. We're trying to convey the accumulated 'wisdom' about how the game can work.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Yeah. This would not be that much more difficult to deal with than any power in the game and would give players the chance to play mounted combat, armored combat ect.
A lot of games have this kind of mechanic in them. You have attacks and animations based on what is equipped. You use a sword you have a slash attack and the animations for it but when you use a spear you have a stab attack and the animations for it. The idea of 'model proliferation' would not really apply if you treat it like a set of powers with its own rules instead of trying to add it to other sets of powers.
To make it work in the combat style that city of titans will have then instead of equipping items you activate or toggle powers to change your combat animations and abilities.
I missed no point whatsoever. Look at the OP. This was obviously an "if only..." thread and it is in the "Suggestions and Ideas" category. I never said anything would be easy, unless you think my use of the word "doable" implies easy. And I really don't think the devs need our expert opinions or accumulated wisdom on whether something would be easy or hard to do anyway. It is a pretty darn talented team, after all.
Besides, the comment you quoted was directed at Black4dawn, and it was all in good humor. I could have far more abrasive language than I did, as you have seen others do in these forums.
But we are all stakeholders, not just those of us who supported the kickstarted either, and we all want the game to succeed. In my playbook, that means when we see an idea in the suggestions thread we all work together to come up with cool ideas and try to build on them to see how we can make them work DESPITE the challenges rather than tear them down BECAUSE of them. But maybe I'm setting my playbook by false expectations.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Didn't really read like a joke to me but I'll admit that I take things too literally too often.
Really? Then why have I effectively never seen anything even near a cost-benefit analysis in any such suggestion/discussion since it is among the top 3 biggest, if not even the biggest, factors deciding if something gets included. Until that one is tackled I don't think that the kind of in-depth discussion that you are alluding to here is really warranted.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to have more "body types" than just humanoid regardless of if it's implemented as actual bodies or vehicles. But at the same time I don't think it's really productive to "yet again" bring up something that has been discussed to death, even if in a slight variation.
I am glad you are the self-appointed moderator who unilaterally decides what is and what is not of value to discuss in this forum. Otherwise I would continue to partake in cooperative community-building and entertaining discussions about a game we are all excited about. Instead, I will keep to myself and wait for you to give me a notice that something is worth my time and effort to contribute to.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Jeez, that is some leap of logic. If you can't see the difference between [b]personal opinion[/b] and stating something as a fact then, yes, you should probably stay out of discussions.
And it was not a matter of what is and is not appropriate as a whole but rather avoiding harping over the same thing over and over and over again. Especially when it doesn't add anything new to the discussion.
I'm a full supporter of vehicle-based travel powers, particularly things such as motorcycle or horse (for a given value of "vehicle") based super-speed and jetpack or jetboard (those are technically vehicles, right?) based flight as starting points. If those work well, and I don't really see why they wouldn't, aside from requiring the assets, then I think that taking things a step further with larger vehicles should be given some consideration, if it can be done in a way that doesn't come across as clunky and awkward.
As for the topic of entire-vehicle based transformation as a character's primary or secondary powersets, I'm gonna be honest... I'm very, very skeptical of the idea. First of all are the design issues. Either these powers would need to be built to accommodate the existing layouts of indoor maps, or vice versa. In either case, it really places some limitations on the scale of these "vehicles", lest we end up with hallways even wider than the two lane indoor roads with 15ft ceilings we saw in CoX. This is very important because if these "vehicle"-based powersets can't be accommodated, then anyone playing them is in for a bad time whenever they try to do indoor content.
When it comes to being able to engage in combat on a motorcycle or on horseback or whatever, I don't think it's unreasonable for roadwarriors or fantasy warriors or whomever to fight on foot despite using a motorcycle or pegascorn to get around. After all, while you may, conceivably, be able to take said motorcycle or pegascorn indoors, and maybe even maneuver around on it, you're actually putting yourself at a disadvantage in combat.
Mini-mecha type vehicles or werewolf-esque transformations are a little more doable, but honestly, I think that kind of concept could be served well enough in the short term with a system of costume change emotes and a costume system that supports characters with different body types for different costumes, especially if the power customization system is sufficiently robust. This isn't to say I'm against the concept completely, as I think that a transformation-based powerset has some potential. That being said, I think there would need to be more to the system than just a "weak" form and a "strong" form, simply because in that scenario, the "weak" form is pretty much just purely cosmetic. IMO, the ideal setup would be for the two alternate forms to be a tanky but inflexible low-mobility form with powerful direct attacks and a softer, more flexible form with support and control abilities. Of course, this then creates the issue of creating a balance between not being good at anything, and being too good at everything.
On the mech thing: couldn't you just make a robot and say it's a mech? Costume change out of it maybe.
[hr]
[color=red]PR, Forum Moderator[/color]
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/desvipers-creative-impulsivity]My Non-Canon Backstories[/url]
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You can. You can also make a hand gun a clothing option and shortcut handgun animations that way.
The point is that clothing is for how you look and abilities are for what you do. Shooting a handgun has its own animations just like a mech has its own animations. Mech are common enough that its a good idea to devote some effort into making them an animation or ability choice rather than doing the bare minimum and telling people to make it work with the costumes.
In the specific case of a bipedal, humanoid Iron Man suit type mech, I would totally make that a costume option and handle it as such. If you're looking for something like the size of a gundam, that's another story. As some have said, even just making a Giant Man size-change power is fraught with difficulties, so I wouldn't expect that to work, no matter how you tried to implement it, except maybe in outdoor maps. That constraint almost completely relegates your jaeger or voltron or whatever to a travel power, like having your own super airplane or something. Even making the thing only about one to one and a half stories tall makes it a no-go on indoor maps, and you probably need to avoid making anything that players can control that would be big enough to step on cars and NPCs walking around.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Robots, power armor and mechs all can have interesting animations applied to them that can't be represented by just making a costume and having a fire ball shoot from their hand.
Even the iron man suit that you point at has some different animations that set it apart from other simple shooting animations. When the character concept is that abilities come directly from the costume then maybe there should be animations to represent it. Concepts like Iron man, War machine, Lex Luthor, Cyborg, Ultron, M.O.D.O.K, Vison, Blue Beetle, Ragnarok, Lady Deathstrike, Robocop, Daleks, R2D2, Krang, Inspector Gadget, The Guyver, Frankenstein's Monster and so many more.
To make it easier for the animators to do, make the costume an ability itself and let players choose from a list which they like the most. To make it even easier on the developers and give the players more control over their characters style not all of these animation choices need to be full body transformations. Some can be additions like tubes, arm swaps, leg swaps, shoulder cannons, wrist blasters, Tesla coils, back packs or whatever.
When the transformation and ability are the same thing then there isn't a worry about conflicting animations. If the ability is your lower body becomes tank treads then you don't have to worry about a player trying to do a karate kick.
And I don't think anyone is expecting giant Jaeger sized mechs they are thinking more in the human and slightly larger sizes mechs, robots and power armor.
Well, actually, when I expect Jaeger sized mechs, I'm thinking Girl Genius, not Pacific Rim. So, yes, exactly!
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
Not sure what you are trying to argue here but it sounds like you want some abilities to have a fixed list of "transformations" instead of, say, having those abilities perform a temporary costume switch, even if the only difference between the costumes is the "backpack" used. Also, most of the "power armor unique" animations that I can think of would only need an appropriate weapon displayed, and the weapon itself could most likely be used by other types of costume concepts by using a different visual.
AFAIK, the abilities in city of titans are going to have a list of animations to choose from. Projectile attacks will have some gun animations, hand blasts or eye beams for example.
What I am talking about is a set of abilities that represent an external aid and has animation choices that include either full body transformations into man sized mechs, power armor, or robots as well as animations that act as additions instead of replacements. Additions could include some kind of chemical boost like Bane, Will power armor like Green Lantern or even just a handgun that is housed in your leg like robocop. The idea is that the set of abilities would offer a choice for players who want to not only play a character with external aid but to have that external aid be animated as well.
I do agree that power armor animations could be used for many concepts if the animation is simple. But if you design those animations with the idea that it comes from the external aid you can do some interesting animations.
Here are a few examples of full mech, robot or power armor attacks that are unlikely to fit other costume concepts.
[img]https://media3.giphy.com/media/Gij6qYM3u41LW/200_s.gif[/img]
[img]http://roleplaying.diraven.net/macross/deitrich/images/ouilqua-missiles.gif[/img]
[img]http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/epicrapbattlesofhistory/images/5/5a/ED-209_Based_On.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20160121170440[/img]
Iron Man has all these neat little weapons that pop out of his suit, Macross shows the very cool visual missile volley and Ed 209 has big Vulcan guns for arms. Making an animation for the mechanical aid set can have each of these abilities and still offer variety in animations that fit a full transformation into a robot, mech or power armor.
You could also have animations that look like additions to the character instead of full transformations. Like these examples.
[img]http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/0/8960/1686452-nathan_spencer.jpg[/img]
[img]http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11/119238/3309792-3466681017-ELYSI.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.fembotwiki.com/images/3/3c/1024x1110_5805_Robo_Girl_2d_sci_fi_girl_woman_cyborg_robot_picture_image_digital_art.jpg[/img]
Bionic Commando, Kruger and Robo Girl can all have costumes that the player makes but the abilities add these extras. They can also have the same abilities as the full transformation set but just animated different. Full transformation can have a simple projectile attack from a shoulder cannon while the addition animation has a wrist blaster that pops out. Same ability different animation.
These animations dont have to all be modern or futuristic either. A magical ancient armor could shoot fireballs from its chest or explosive globs of acid from its mouth. How about a steampunk armor with cool guns and flame throwers. Just like any other set of abilities you can choose these can have a lot of different animations to represent the same ability.
And before anyone starts talking about difficulty in doing so, remember city of heroes had these:
[img]http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/paragon/images/9/94/Kheldian_WhiteDwarf.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20070210065200[/img]
[img]http://www.blogcdn.com/massively.joystiq.com/media/2012/05/coh-mmr-eat-1-epl-514.jpg[/img]
[img]http://lparchive.org/City-of-Heroes/Update%2034/5-crab.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.seventhrealm.com/history/coh_ulliam3.jpg[/img]
[img]http://chaosnode.net/aug06/di060817.jpg[/img]
[img]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/0a/2d/fd/0a2dfd797ad8d364aa1df5c7105c3616.jpg[/img]
Even all the weapon sets, both modern and ancient, are animations based on the idea of a tool that is used in combat. I am just suggesting animations and a set of powers for a more elaborate tool.
Right, but any humanoid transformation can be handled by a Costume Swap, without having to invent a whole new type of powerset. Epic ATs are not a good comparison, because those were Powers-attached-to-Costume, which is something that MWM has said they Don't want to do. Actually, that seems to be what you're arguing for.
Costume is not powers and powers is not costume - that's the whole point of aesthetic decoupling.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I think you are confusing an ability that transforms a character with an ability that is a because of a costume.
AFAIK MWM does not want to make costume choices affect abilities but there is nothing that says an ability cannot affect the way a character looks. An ability that transforms a character to metal as a visual for armor is not out of the question. Protruding spikes that pop out when using an ability is not out of the question. Even wolverine like claws will change the look of a character.
That is what I am talking about. Animations that can change the appearance of a character to simulate some kind of external aid.
A simple costume change is not the same as a power armors combat or defensive abilities, just like a punching set of abilities is not the costume or a shooting set of abilities is not the same as a costume.
Aesthetic decoupling is about offering choices for the visuals of your abilities not anything about costumes.
I can see a set of abilities based on fist fighting that have various animations from martial arts to psychic punches. I can also see an external aid set that has animations from mechs to arm swaps.
From what I read in the kickstarter info all sets will have a general theme that players can dial in with the animations offered for that theme. I took the OPs suggestion and thought about a way to make it fit in what we know about the abilities the game will have from the theme design to the multiple animations and visuals of decoupling.
I dunno, I think having two costumes, one that's "claws out" and the other "claws in" and have a sound effect like *SNIKT* when you switch might be better. Then you just have a macro that does the costume change when you use a power, set to always put you into "claws out" if you're not in that already.
Because if the powers themselves are constantly extracting and retracting the claws, that's a little pointless.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Or they could do what city of heroes did and first use of a claw ability popped them out and they stayed out until you stopped using them for a short period of time.
Right, that was a Weapon Animation and attached to the Power. Just like drawing a sword, or gun, it's part of the power animation set. In costume creation, we could chose the Look of it. The Devs have stated that they plan to let us choose animations and emanation-points in CoT.
'Transformation' should be a Costume issue, not a Powerset issue. Powersets give attacks and defenses (and movement and utility abilities), they don't 'change the rules' for a character. Of course, Costumes also don't 'change the rules', they just change the appearance.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I cant disagree more. Transformation can be a part of costume creation or it can be a function of the ability set the player picks.
A transformation set that has abilities in it to support the transformation is not changing the rules.
An ability that gives you limited time transformation can turn you into a small tank, a robot, a werewolf, a blob, a big floating head or anything your imagination can come up with. Any other abilities you use while transformed should be representative of the form you are in. A small tank cant kick someone and a floating head dosent have hands to choose as emanation points.
I think you are confusing transformation with always looking like the transformation. You still have design your costume and look that way most of the time. But when you use an ability in this set you transform into a different visual. A visual that you choose from the list the game provides, just like picking which gun you have or the type of sword you use.
So, how many models do you expect the Devs to create for this Transformation Power?
And where does it fit on the chart?
[img]http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f346/zombie_guy/TPP/CoTats_zps56a08933.png[/img]
Be Aware, this chart is very old and the names of things may have changed.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Well to start with, I don't expect the devs to do anything. I expanded the OP's idea to fit the design of the game.
I don't have any idea how many models the devs would make for this. I also don't know how many different gun or sword models the game will have or if those gun or swords will have different animations based on the type of sword or gun. The man with no name fires a peacemaker revolver different than Harry Callahan shoots a .44 Magnum and d'Artagnan uses a Rapier different than Beatrix Kiddo uses her Hattori Hanzō katana. I can't even give an estimation of how many external aid models the devs would need to make because I don't know how diverse the game is going to be with its animations and visuals.
Any of the examples I have already given could be made for any of the classes on the chart. I'd go further and say it would fit any ability set type.
I could speculate about how these would fit if thats what you want though.
An ability set based on the themes external aid control, external aid melee, external aid support, external aid ranged, external aid defense and external aid assault are designed.
Each are designed with the idea that the powers come from the external aid and not the character. The sets will have 'modes' that can be activated either by toggle or click. These 'modes' set what abilities you have. For example a character with external aid melee activates basic combat 'mode' and gains a couple punch attacks and a shove while a character with external aid ranged activates basic combat 'mode' and gets a couple projectile attacks and an aoe. As the character gains more abilities new 'modes' are available. High level gets advanced combat 'mode' and it give different attacks but you can still use the basic combat 'mode' to set up better attack chains like any other character. If you don't activate a 'mode' then you abilities are very limited and weak. To offset this disadvantage these 'modes' offer more versatility than other sets. They could have a wider range of damage types, resist more damage types or maybe they just perform slightly better. The OP suggested an interesting mechanic that I like the best and co-opted to work with my idea. The 'modes' are indefinite duration and instead have their own health that gets depleted until the 'mode' is destroyed. In most cases this wouldn't be a problem as it should last long enough that the recharge on it would be up before you took enough damage for it to be broken but sometimes you are taking so much damage that you will be without the 'mode' for a short time. To keep this from being an I win button, damage applies equally to the 'mode' and the character not as an additional health bar the player gets. I want to make this clear so when the character is hit for 10 damage both the character and his 'mode' take 10 damage each there is no splitting of that damage. Thats the ability design that I speculate could be possible.
Now to represent this ability set the character gets a visual representation of the 'mode' he activates. It can be any of the examples I have already given, robot, armor, chemical pipes, will power constructs, Tesla coils, ect. These are not class or ability type restricted. The same robot visual can be used for a Bulwark and a Director when a 'mode' is activated. Each of the 'modes' the set has will give some actions the character can do as described. Thats where different animations are designed to fit the visual of the 'mode' For example if you are using external aid ranged with a robot visual for the mode, an attack could be a small shoulder cannon pops out and shoots at the enemy but if you are using the same visual for external aid melee you do the Hulkbuster piston punch from Age of Ultron as one of your attacks.
Thats all just speculation because I don't know how elaborate the animations or visuals will be in city of titans and I have no idea how generic or specific the ability sets will be. It might be the visuals and animations I picture are more than MWM want to do or the set of abilities is too specific for MWM's liking. But this would fit the design MWM has put forth as I know it right now.
I've seen (in movies and on TV to some extent) computer systems capable of capturing motions that humans rigged with fiducial markers carry out, like for animated movies, etc. Is that something MWM can do or is doing? If not, is it something that more money could/would pay for that would make work progress faster?
I'm envisioning a thing where you just dress a person up in a neoprene wetsuit (without the flippers) and attach some kind of body markers to it, like ping-pong balls that the computer cameras (two or more of them for binocular depth of field) can detect with high precision, then have the actor carry out any number of different attack animations in real time while you record it and then use it to create the animations that the avatars in the game do. You could do all sorts of martials arts that way, as well as sword fighting styles, guns, etc.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Thats motion capture, or mo-cap. Its how they do most cg in movies now.
It used to be very expensive to do because you needed to buy all the equipment and software and then mess around with the settings to make it work well with you programs only to find out you need to create some script to bridge the motion capture software with your animation software because they were not compatible.
Now most mo-cap software is universal and you can rent a mo-cap studio from a local university. I would be surprised if MWM does not use mo-cap to some extent.
[img]http://i.giphy.com/xT0GqIspWSnCGlagoM.gif[/img]
;)
Ok, I see now what you are talking about Brainbot. I think my biggest confusion was your referral to full and almost full "transformations" as costumes, when I have heard them mainly being referred to as overlays.
For the smaller ones, like the wrist launcher, it is best handled as a weapons choice.
For the larger ones, like the stone armor, I think that is better handled by either having a built-in costume slot in the power or being able to link a power and a normal costume slot, and its use being optional of course. Having MWM decide what one can "transform" into in those cases would be too restrictive imo. The biggest benefit is that every time they add new costume options they get automatically usable for these "transformations", and thus don't add any extra work on the arts team.
I'd rather allow/force the user to make the "armored-up" costume by themselves, in the costume software, as opposed to giving everyone a specific "Granite Armor" look that everyone has to use, which CoX had. I would definitely avoid forcing everyone to use the same specific costume, a la Granite Armor in CoX, as a part of any primary/secondary/tertiary set power or any other power you could select when leveling up. If you want to have a specific "Granite Armor" as a temp power that can be acquired by crafting it or unlocking it in the game, perhaps one that looks like a specific faction's "Earth Elemental" or "Stone People" look, fine, but I think aesthetic decoupling would dictate that my tanker's "armored-up" look be decided upon by me, as costume, in the costume software, not a set-in-stone (no pun intended) graphic that everyone has to use for that too when they take that power.
So if you want to tie a specific power to a specifc set of graphics and animations, I'm fine with that as a crafted or unlockable extra. As an inherent power in a power set, I'd prefer NOT that.
Even something as small as claws could be designed in a number of different ways. Are they long metal things that retract into your forearm like Wolverine, or are they the fingertip kind that Black Panther used in the recent Captain America movie? When I take "Claws" as a costume option I don't want it to be a super power in and of itself, I want it to be a costume option. Once selected, you can make them extract and retract as you like, and you can change the power animations from "punch with closed fist" to "rake with claws" etc, but don't make "claws" a superpower or even a set. Make the set "melee whatever" and let people choose claws as an option in the animations etc for that. That way my claws and your claws might look different, and whatever they look like, you and I might be using the same or different melee attack set powers.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I really don't know how you could confuse what I was asking for as costumes. I have been constantly saying this isn't a costume and that is a visual representation of an ability. This isn't anger its a genuine shock and bewilderment.
I am all for costumes options that are animated when certain abilities are activated. Your example of a wrist blaster would be great and city of heroes had some that did something like that with their wings and jet boots. But I am talking about a set of abilities that provide an external aid and the effects it would have then giving those effects interesting animations that reflect its external aid. Like that wrist blaster pops out from inside the arm Iron Man style or a backpack that has tubes that come out and stick into your arms when you use a self buff. We are still not talking about the same thing.
I also can't understand your thinking when you say MWM decides what one can transform into. They won't be deciding, you will. First by taking this set of abilities and then by picking from the options they provide. They can give you options for what you can turn into and even let you color it, but they can't give you an 'anything you want' option for transformations. It is the only way city of titans will be able to have transformation abilities. Just like in character creation you have options for costumes in other ability sets you have options. Nothing in this game is going to be all things to everyone. If you take an ability set like Invulnerability from city of heroes in this game you will be given options for the effects of those abilities. It 'could' be anything, from no effect to a full body transformation to steel, but it 'won't' be everything. You will have limitations based on what MWM provides. That's is no different than what I am saying for this ability set except in this case I seem to be the only one willing to acknowledge the fact that abilities will have limited animation and effects.
So would I.
I am not sure what you are rallying against because I can't find anyone who has suggested only one option for these abilities.
I can respect you not wanting a set of abilities with transformation effects but your reason for not wanting it does not make any sense.
The game won't just have melee, ranged, support, assault and defense. It will have themes the sets follow. So claw melee is a possibility because the abilities in that set will work different than strength melee. If the game didn't have more variety than your, frankly, ludacris idea of completely generic ability sets then the game would not offer enough playable variety.
For the record, I wasn't posting my last post as a way of agreeing or disagreeing with anyone specific. I read the thread and reflected upon what I read and then wrote my point of view on the general subject at hand, that's all. Please don't take everything I type as an intended disagreement or attack, and then tell me I'm doing it wrong. Granted, on these forums, in my experience, once anyone posts anything that others actually care about one way or the other, they generally get reply posts registering immediate disagreement, so that, I grant you, is par for the course.
As for the claws, my understanding of aesthetic decoupling is such that I personally would make "Claws" be a set of animations and graphics not tied to any one specific power set, but as an optional set of animations you might choose for any one of several different, one assumes melee, power sets. If your argument is "nope, claws has to be a power set in it's own right and no other melee set will ever have claws as animation options" then I disagree. I don't think you're saying that, and I'm not trying to put words into anyone's mouth, but that's how I feel about it.
They COULD come up with a "Claws" melee set, as CoX did, or they could make the names and themes of the power sets independent of the costume and animations and give them names like "Street Justice" and "Berserker Melee" and "Self Defense Melee" etc then let the players attach the animations they want to those powers, chosen from whatever animation sets are available for the power set in question. I would prefer that to just giving everyone the exact same set of claws or the exact same Granite Armor like CoX had as part of the power itself, unless as I said it's a temp power or an unlock or something.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
We have done very little to limit aesthetics within design of a set. It may very well be possible to have "claws" as an option for a strength set as much as it would have punches, wind (within melee), "energy", and other melee weapons.
What might not be seen in a strength set is dual wielding animations for weapons. The reaon for that for dual-weilding to pay off properly, there are some mechanics for how the powers operate which are needed. Furthermore, "claws" isn't a theme. It is an aesthetic. Themes in our system are used to indicate a direction for mechanics and a broad categorization of effects ie Burning leverages damagenover time, is "stuff that burns".
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I call shenanigans. Your post was in opposition to my suggestion. You may not have been attacking me but you were in disagreement. And where did I say you were doing it wrong? I said I was confused by your train of thought because you take these great leaps of logic to make your points.
Any speculation on what the ability sets will be is speculation. My suggestion could be too specific a theme or it might be more restrictive in design than MWM wants. I said that earlier.
I get that you don't like my suggestion and you have your reasons. You have to get that I am allowed to disagree with you and your reasons and I am allowed to explain why.
For example. I see no difference between a set that lets you turn into a tank, or a robot or just get a spider arm backpack than a set that lets you pick punching, kicking or claws. You still choose from a list that MWM provides for the power. So what is your issue with a set that has an effect that could be full, partial or no transformation in it?
Thanks for replying.
Will the game include any transformation mechanics? Will the game have any animated costume parts for attacks like the jet boots in city of heroes did when you were flying?
To me, turning your avatar into a tank (like with treads and a turret), turning the avatar into a humanoid robot (with legs and arms and a head), and giving an otherwise humanoid avatar a spider-armed backpack (like the Crab Spiders in CoX) are three very different things which I would handle differently.
I would do the humanoid robot body entirely as a costume option, or set of them, like so that a person could have just one robotic arm if they want, and I would make the animations that require those costume parts work off of those costume parts. The feet probably have little jets that spew smoke when you fly, or maybe there are lights the blink on the different parts here and there, etc. That said, the costume wouldn't be the thing that allows you to fly, you'd have to take the Fly power for that. Anything larger than that, like a gundam or jaeger, I would avoid for map purposes.
I personally wouldn't do "turn person into a tank" at all because I think it feels like a lot of work for such a small payoff. Presumably, your tank body shuts off most animations which a tank can't really do, and that sounds like a lot of them, including most if not all melee attacks. And giving people the "turn into a tank" thing as a temp power almost turns it into a mini-game of tank warfare, which is fine and might be fun, but is of limited application to a superhero game. I mean, you may as well let people turn into/pilot airplanes and add in a flight sim component too, might be fun, probably too much work to do it, and this isn't Ace of Aces. And even then, none of that vehicular stuff would be anything you got as part of primary/secondary/tertiary power sets, to me. It would be crafted and/or unlocked somehow as a temp power if anything.
I would do the spider-legs backpack as costume piece, then allow it to animate various powers, which powers would exist irrespective of any spider pack that may or may not ever be made. Whatever animations the spider pack gives you could then be applied to whatever powers the devs want to allow them to apply to, probably some melee and some ranged attacks, possibly even a locomotion animation of some kind, if they could pull it off. That way you're not married to the spider pack in order to get a power that immobilizes people like the spider pack's "shoot webs" animation would represent and you can still do wall crawling and so forth in different ways. I would also give people jetpacks that do not necessarily grant any form of flight in and of themselves, just as aesthetic costume options, like the Mecha Armor ramjets that Interdictor's avatar on these forums depicts. Then you can use them while flying and they animate that in their own way with particle effects, and so on. If the spider pack is going to come with it's own actual powers that it gives you, I'd make it a temp power unlocked through play and/or crafted or something, like the Crey CBX-9 in CoX, but I'd prefer not to attach any powers to any weapon/costume piece specifically, as I said. Same with the jetpack. I don't really want a jingle jet that gives me the ability to fly, I want the jetpack costume option and the Fly power option as separate things. If you want to marry the costume piece to the power, fine, but not as primary/secondary/tertiary powers. Maybe as a thing for use in the seasonal event du jour or something like that, okay. Apart from that, just give me a jetpack option in the costuming and allow me to use it when I activate my Fly power and I'm happy.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
You are focusing on 3 examples out of a long list I have given to show how many different visual, or to use Tannim222's word, aesthetic options which could be designed. And two of your methods for handling these options can co-exist with my method.
Robots do not fall only into the 'humanoid' style. Four legs, four arms, tanks treads, robotic animals, steampunk insects and whatever else your imagination comes up with. Even humanoid robots can have abilities aesthetics that are not easily transferred to the costume creator. Inspector Gadget, machine man, war machine, the T-X from terminator 3 and so on.
This, like the second thing I quoted, can co-exist with my suggestion except your ideas are harder to do. The character creator is going to have a lot of different costume options and body modification sliders. trying to make costume parts that not only fit together with all these options and sliders but animated them as well is not a small task. To do it well MWM will probably keep any ability interaction with costumes small in scale and few in option. I have doubts that MWM will ever make a costume part that interacts with as many powers as you suggest for a spider backpack. I am more inclined to think they would give the spider backpack the option to be used as a emanation point for shooting or melee swipes only. And thats fine but it was not what the OP wanted or my suggestion on how to give Halae what she(?) wanted.
You missed why this whole part does not apply.
When you transform, which I called modes, you gain attacks. This transformation is chosen from a list of aesthetics which give the animation for those attacks. So if you transform into a robot spider and do a melee attack you lash out with one of your 8 legs and when you do a ranged attack a big Ion cannon comes out of your abdomen at the spinneret area to shoot at someone. Another option the player could choose is a set of extra steampunk arms that are bristling with weapons so when you melee someone those arms do a cool overhead smash motion and when you shoot someone one arm opens up to reveal a tesla coil gatling gun inside it. As your character progresses and gets more modes you get more attacks that can include things like a projectile mandibles for the spider or a detachable fist for the steampunk arms. Both ability sets are the same on paper but look very different because of the aesthetic decoupling the game has, just like a punch and claw attack would.
To make this type of aesthetic and animation interaction feasible you have to have limits on the amount of customization the player has. If you dont then you end up with stuff that either is too open or too limited. If its too open you can get that stupid situation in city of heroes when you had the claws ability set and hook hands costume option. if its too limited then you have that lazy city of heroes goofy looking all purpose rifle that still only fired from the barrel instead of the emanation points that made sense on that gun.
We both want a lot of options for the aesthetics of our abilities. My suggestion does not take any of those away from you, its just that to give the OP an ability set that she (?) wants you have to have to be willing to accept some limitations on what can be done and design accordingly. She(?) wanted a set that had an in mech and out of mech difference in play style and I suggested a way to make that happen in city of titans that not only has a mechanic for that but also could be aesthetically decoupled, uniquely designed and might not require unacceptable amounts of work to make a reality.
Maybe I focused too much on the word costume but using lines like "[i]To make it easier for the animators to do, [u]make the costume an ability[/u] itself and let players choose from a list which they like the most[/i]" doesn't help at all. The word costume has a fairly narrow meaning in this regard, that is that it is the base looks of a toon. Using the word visuals, looks or aesthetics would have been much better.
Making an entire set based mainly around external aid is not, to my knowledge, what MWM would call a power theme since there would be no mechanics that are specific to "external aid". "External aid" would be purely an aesthetic option available to any power.
Any attack powers, like the wrist blaster, are essentially made up of three distinct components, weapon, animation and particle effects. As a weapon option wrist blaster specifically would probably be easy to animate in the way you suggest but all these have to be taken on a case by case basis. MWM have talked about swords before and said that getting sheeting/unsheeting animations would be a fairly big undertaking since not only would they have to make one animation per "anchor point" of the sheet but most likely slight variations based on the over all size/shape of the sword. The biggest "hurdle" would be the time they have to dedicate to the "pop out/in" of the wrist blaster or similar.
The tentacle backpack would be a self-buff ability and thus probably not have a weapons component. Not sure how hard it would be to animate properly due to the number of options one has for a costume overall, especially in arm accessories, but one option is to make them go so far out that no costume option would be able to clip into them. Another thing is if they would force a stance change or not, if not then they would need to make a version for every stance.
That was what I meant by "deciding what I can turn into", the limited aesthetic options provided. Or maybe a more correct phrasing would be that they decide against what I can turn into by not providing it as an option. The big thing is that due to the aesthetic decoupling I can't really see a justification for such limited options on transformations since anything like that can be represented by sooooooo many options.
Out of context that one line might be confusing. But in the rest of the post I was saying how costumes do not convey the concept of a costume being the abilities source and that to properly convey that concept you turn the costume into an ability.
There is a mechanic specific to external aid. To quickly explain it again, a difference in ability between having the external aid active and not having it active. If you just want an aesthetic option I am fine with it, but both this ability theme and a purely aesthetic option can co-exist in the game.
I went over this before. This problem of a case by case basis would not happen. You pick your transformations visual, or aesthetic if you want, and all you can change of it is the color. The animations, anchor points, scaling issues and other problems with animating a customizable model are removed by having the model be uniform in scale and shape. So the biggest hurdle you talk about is simple because it does not need anchor points, or have to worry that the character model and weapon model will conflict. That wrist blaster will pop out and in for everyone. Just like those jet boots in city of heroes did not offer any customization but when you were flying they had their effect applied the same for everyone.
This is just more problems that would not be part of my suggestion because the transformation is not one you need to worry about clipping with.
Every ability in the game will have limited options. You won't be able to have every option in the game work for every ability. If you think there are only a limited amount of aesthetic options for an external aid transformation set then I think your imagination is limited. If MWM only gave the set options for a bipedal robot they still would never run out of different aesthetics and interactive animations they could make.
And this is where i say the same thing to you I said to Radiac.
I see no difference between a set that lets you turn into a tank, or a robot or just get a spider arm backpack than a set that lets you pick punching, kicking or claws. To go further whats the difference between a set that lets you choose an animated fire aura, whirling wind aura or an energy aura and one that lets you choose an animated version of these :
[img]http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2015/10/29/753981_md-Freikorps,%20Hannah,%20Malifaux,%20Miniatures,%20Models,%20Non-Metallic%20Metal,%20Outcasts.jpg[/img]
[img]http://news.toyark.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2015/04/Hulkbuster-Preview-4.jpg[/img]
[img]http://recyclenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/steampunk_cospro_by_steampunkoverlord-d325x9g.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Umd7vG7Gzuc/hqdefault.jpg[/img]
[img]http://66.media.tumblr.com/c60820c85b1c061b5936a774ab30dd02/tumblr_nmrj1jTk881qfrkf0o1_1280.jpg[/img]
O.K., I think I have a handle on most of what you're proposing, and it may be that there are aspects that haven't been considered yet.
First off, this isn't a power set, it's one of a bunch, because any role could use this mechanic, where something must be activated before the power can be used. And the main problem this leads to is that there is one more control needed in the UI for each power with this mechanic: any energy blast needs one button for the trigger; this version also needs a toggle to deploy the wrist blaster. Although this is more manageable if many powers are using the same toggle, like a whole suit, not just the blaster.
Second, the visual effect should be optional. Just because the user has to prep something, doesn't mean the prep has to be obvious. For most of the concepts being floated here, there would be the visual effect, but the mechanics shouldn't require it.
Thirdly, the easiest way to get the visual effect is to link the activation toggle to a costume toggle. If the visual effect is done separately from the available costumes, it limits both the available visual effects for these powers and limits the availability of the visual effect to these powers. Whether it is worth the devs' time to make what amounts to a new costume so that we can play a hero that climbs into a mini-tank to Fight Evil, without making the costume available to a hero who can instantly assume the form of a mini-tank, is left as an exercise for the students.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
All of your 'problems' are ones I have already talked about. Since I posted my speculation of the way the ability set could be I have been pointing out how the 'problems' people have with it were already discussed in that post.
I just do not care enough about this to keep running around in circles over it.
Only mentioned one problem; the need for a toggle button, which cuts into the available controls for powers a bit. The rest was observation and opinion about how it would/could be done.
But to get clarification on one point you made, about not needing a karate kick when your lower torso is replaced with tank treads: Does this mean that when you're transformed, you would have only the powers of the transformation set, and not any of your tertiary powers? Or just ones with animations using the affected area? Or would there be some way of selecting which ones are disabled?
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
You guys have discussed the toggle ability that swaps out your action bar (or a portion of it) for another depending on what you transfom into. So there's little I could add to that discussion that hasn't been said already. Rather, I'm going to build on the partial modification idea option. This would be the addition of a single power or ability above what the character already has as part of the character's build.
Let's suppose that in CoT we get a trinket button, like what they have in DCUO. Other MMOs have done this with special actions available on a mission by mission basis that show up as an icon in the journal portion of the UI that you can click on. Or you could use a conditional button that only appears when an action is available, like how Blade & Soul does it. I personally would like to see a combination of Blade & Soul and DCUO, in which keybinds are reserved for one or more "add-ons" but you won't see them in your screen UI until an add-on is actually equipped. Then it could have an indication applied in the same grayed out-versus-highlighted routine as other powers or abilities to determine if it is usable or not with the target selected at the range selected, or whatever other activation criteria is met.
So if you had a button reserved just for add-ons then you could equip that famous spider backpack that actually has an attack that is above and beyond your set attacks. I know I wish I had this when I played CoV. I can see all different kinds of spider backpack options becoming available now too. In fact, you could have a special wrist rocket, shoulder-fired missile, exploding fist, laser eyes, or any number of special additional attacks that could be gear-dependent and socketed in that slot. You could even give people jet boots granting them some semblance of flight abilities. And, of course, they could each have a costume appearance that you would see whenever you have it socketed, not just when it is in use. In some cases the add-on would replace the normal costume item (like a backpack replacing a cape) but in others it could be a strap-on, like a shoulder-mounted weapon. A wrist-mount could be either a strap on or a complete lower arm replacement, depending on the artist's concept, and so on. But you would only be able to have one add-on at a time equipped (per add-on slot if we get allotted more than one).
Would the devs give us the ability to swap socketed items in combat? Not sure where I fall on that... Could be OP, but it could also be thematic so someone could play an inspector gadget character with all manner of nifty tricks that the player keeps swapping out by dragging them from inventory and into the add-on slot. This sounds like a hassle, so the idea of multiple slots comes to mind. There are three problems with providing multiple slots for add-ons. First, there is the clipping issue when one add-on is in the same bodypart as another. There would need to be a conflict resolver to prevent this so that only one body part can have an add-on at a time. Second, how many additional buttons would we need to reserve for add-ons? More than one could start to get unwieldy, depending on how many they give us already. Third, multiple add-ons could make someone overpowered. To keep this from becoming OP, one could have a singe standard add-on slot that all characters get, but you could also backfit add-ons in place of regular inherent abilities on the standard action bar. So someone really could build that combat robot armor or that inspector gadget character could give himself a simple punch and then the rest of his action bar full of a bunch of gadgets provided by add-ons.
In game terms, this add-on slot could also be used for special carried items used during a mission, like a demolition charge, or a satellite communicator, or what have you. The idea being that once the add-on capability is in the game, the devs (and us architects) could use it for anything, not just a power granted by a piece of add-on gear, so the functionality for add-ons would be built into the game for everyone.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Your 'observations' were all what you felt were flaws in my suggestion that you used to argue against it. Call them observations if you want but they were problems you have with my idea that I had already talked about.
When transformed you only have the abilities the transformation gives you. That's the point of the transformation mechanic, to show that the abilities come from the external aid.
But the suggestion is speculation on the games ability system design. There is no way to account for the unknown so maybe some of the tertiary powers will work and some won't, maybe none will work and maybe all will. It's speculation just like possible aesthetics. If MWM took my suggestion an ran with it there is nothing that says they will have tank tread aesthetics or wrist blasters that pop out when you use them.
My examples are not the pivotal point of the suggestion.
I am suggesting a theme for a set of abilities based on the OP's desires with an increasing list of possible aesthetics and speculating on how to do it in the confines of the games design. The theme is the important aspect not the examples or speculation.
That theme has been lost in all this illusion of the possible vs reality of the probable discussion of aesthetic options.
Certainly not at launch if ever (read below). We know what will be possible, but the amount of work involved to make truly transformation mechanics requires more time than we have for it to fit within our current scope. I will try to clarify the distinction we have for what is purely aesthetic and how mechanics would affect aesthetics as mechanics are how powers and therefore, power sets operate.
Certainly, the easiest form of transformation we can set up is by allowing the player to have additional costume slots. Players could have customizable costume change emotes. And each costume may use different animations, different emmanation points for attacks, colors, etc... However, these don't affect how the powers work. It may be possible to have multiple character builds using different powers within the same sets, but switching builds may have more time limitations than what a player would find feasible to use both a costume change and build switch to make the transformation also work with "different powers".
Transformation mechanics on the other hand, are different in that they would end up affecting how the powers or power sets operate. The problem comes down to the fact that each classification will have primary sets, secondary sets, and possibly (up to the player) a number of different tertiary sets. In order to make transformation mechanics where certain powers are only available when certain transformations are active would not work with the current set up if the transformation must work with every possible combination of power sets. Or it requires a special UI both during the character creation process and during play through which the player preplans which powers are avaible at different transformations. While possible, it is the least likely route we would take to apply.
To truly make transformation mechanics, we would have to create unique sets to leverage the different transformations which have trade-offs for each. Even if these uique sets offeres different aesthetic transformations, they would be limited to the particular classifications for which they were designed. While these unique sets might be made into tertiary sets, they would need to have other UI designs in place to restrict ue of other powers.
The most likely early applications we may use (if ever) would be temporary powers that transform the avatar and provide certain powers upon transformation.
Certainly there will be certain ones at launch, like wings. I don't know what the pipeline looks like for the costume artists and animators for other costume pieces like rocket boots for what will be in by launch, but those types of things will happen over time.
And again, anything is subject to change throughout development.
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Thanks for replying.
That was one of my worries about my speculation of a transformation set. That it would be more work than you felt it was worth. In my defense I was going off the very first line in the thread that stated this would not be something for launch.
I agree that costume change emotes would be the easiest way to let players 'transform', but it is nice to see you understand what I was suggesting by a transformation set.
If I can beg a couple questions here though. You talk about different emanation points. Will the programmers, animators and modelers collaborate so that the emanation points, animations and costume designs fit with one another. For example, if an emanation point is from the center of the forehead will there be options to act as its origin and will it be animated in a way that it fits the emanation point? It has always bothered me in games when the emanation point of an effect does not fit with the models design.
The other question is, will you have costume parts or ability aesthetics that are interactive with abilities? For example, blue beetles ability to have his hands turn into some kind of blaster.
[img]http://img08.deviantart.net/829f/i/2011/153/8/3/rise_of_the_blue_beetle_by_mai_raven-d3hv2lj.jpg[/img]
Thats understandable. But to play devils advocate, why couldn't you just limit which other sets work with the transformation set. For example, in city of heroes if you took the ability set shield there were sets you could not take with it.
Thats good. I am a big supporter of having costume parts interact with the abilities you are using and would love to see more of it. I would love to see an animated shoulder cannon that tracks enemies to use with ranged sets, tubes with strange liquids pumping in it when you activate a buff for support sets, arms turning into clubs for melee sets, alien discs that shoot from your backpack when you use crowd control sets and anything else you can imagine.
I don't quite follow what you mean here. Is it that your concerned that an emanation point can be chosen but then the player chooses a costume piece or an animation that doesn't work with the point of origin of the attack? Those are two different issues. Primarily, for the player's perspective, the emanation point is something that would be provided through the animation selection process. A very loose example would be choosing the animation "Burn Blast_head" or "Burn_Blast_kung-fu-fist".
Now if the concern is that say, the player chooses to shape the head that would cause the emanation point to no longer show up on the head but suddenly from the mouth or over the head, UE4's socket system handles that as we assign the socket to the skeleton, any morphs to the skeleton also moves the socket with the rest of the skeletal pieces.
Yes it is possible. Some of these may eventually show up as customizable animation selections in the future. And certainly, anything that doesn't require a major change to the skeleton like going from bipedal limbs to a snake's tail for changing a spin-kick to a tail lash is much easier to accomplish.
That's the tricky part. In our system, having a "shield" isn't a power set anymore. It is an aesthetic option, and therefore, making a singular "shield" forces the customization options into a limited set. Where as taking any set and adding a shield to the animations and costume portions of character design would end up limiting what other animations a player could select for their character. So "invulnerability" may be made to look like someone wearing standard SWAT body armor, a power suit, metal skin, or holding a shield. This way, the power set mechanics all remain the same without having to drive the customization options, while the customization options may within themselves, limit other choices.
The tricky parts are where there are certain limits based on the power set design. Such as "Burning Blast" being limited to visuals of "stuff that burns". While there is a wide range of "stuff that burns" that isn't necessarily limited to "burns that sets on fire", but the broader sense of the world "burn", it is still a limitation of what is customizable. Melee sets certainly won't use the "taking aim and shooting a rifle" animation, while a ranged set like "Burning Blast" may use a melee weapon and animation to "shoot" a sizzling beam, fire, etc...
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Just to make sure I'm understanding this correctly;
You have three characters that all have a fire-based "stuff that burns" Assault secondary. One character's attack animations use a sword that causes a greenish corrosive effect. The second uses martial arts to create purple smoke. The third just uses the generic "fire from hands" with yellow/orange flame. If I'm understanding things correctly, all three would be mechanically identical, using a mix of ranged and melee attacks to inflict fire damage with a DoT effect, despite the cosmetic differences.
That's the basics of it without getting into specifics for damage types (we don't use 'fire' as a damage type). We coin the term aesthetic decoupling. It may help to think of using our avatar creator to not only customize your character's costumes, but fully customize your character's powers as if the powers themselves were a 'costume'.
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I can't think of a better way to explain it right now without using a bad example.
Her goes, the programmer sets an emanation point for the center of the forehead, the modeler designs a third eye costume part and places it where he wants and then the animator has the character model do a pray pose hand to the head psychic animation for that emanation point. If they do not co-ordinate their efforts you can have the emanation point above or below the third eye and the animation covering that third eye with the hands. In this picture you see the third eye but the emanation point is set for the area above that third eye and the animation puts the hands up to cover the eye.
[img]http://www.awakeat2oclock.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/third_eye.jpg[/img]
Another problem where co-ordination between the three areas could help is in fire arm creation. Different length barrels on a gun, different expectations of animations for that type of gun and various styles of guns. A wild west revolver will have a different emanation point and animation than an uzi even if the ability those aesthetics are used for do the same thing.
That was part of my reasoning behind the suggestion. Make the changes to the skeleton in a way that made it as easy on the programmers as possible by limiting the abilities the player can use with that change and by removing the slider customization.
I am glad to see that you allow for the possibility of more interesting animations and aesthetics for abilities than just the simple hold your hand up and point.
The aesthetic customization part of abilities is a welcome change from the normal everyone looks the same route most games take.
I am curious just how many different sets can be designed in a highly generic fashion. Do you think a comic book theme can be conveyed by just aesthetics alone?
I must be missing something because if the only distinction between swords and claws is the aesthetic then I think your plan for replayability will be a tough one to maintain.
I really want to know what ability sets the game is going to have and what the difference between them will be but I know you can't tell us yet.
This is where the socket system with the engine comes into play. The sockets are attached to a particular bone on skeletons or location on a static mesh. So long as the socket for "third eye" is set to the proper bone on the forehead, any morphs applied will move both the bone and the attached socket. The same goes for barrel length of a pistol or rifle. And we had gone quite a few rounds with the system to get it working with our basic model for characters.
Yeah, I'm sorry I can't go into specifics on power sets. What I can say is there are a couple of "layers" for distinction. First is the function or "role" for classification, such as protection, or melee. The next layer is the play style. Melee single target or Melee area effect, and a couple of others each provide a focus for how the set is designed. From there the next layer is "theme" which is the mechanics, speed of the set, and finally we get into minutia of damage type and then into individual powers within the set. Even if you have several power sets within the same function, playstyle, speed, and damage type, the theme (or operational mechanics) are what will provide the disctinction.
The reason we had to go this route is because aesthetic decoupling opens up the possibilities for multiple power sets that can look like "anything" (take that term loosely here), and in order to provide distinction a framework had to be made for how they play, even when there are several matching layers.
The best example I could provide is imagine the old game where there was Staff Fighting and Titan Weapons. They're both melee sets that in our system would probably equate to aoe focus . Now imagine that you could swap the animations between both sets. Even if you did this, they each had a different set of mechanics for how the set as a whole operated, and had differences between some of the powers. Staff Fighting had the Staff Mastery power adding in a the ability to swtich forms for different benefits and a combo-building improvement to effects. Titan Weapons had its Momentum mechanic which was used to increase the cast times of attacks and as a gate to unlock certain attacks.
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So there is effort to making emanation points fit some costume options?
Thats a relief to hear.
Thanks for all the info.
Yeah I get a nerd boner every time I'm reminded of Aestetic Decoupling :p
Back to OP, what I'm following from Tannim is that one could make a class that's say, energy blast/invulnerability.
Non-mech costume: a dual pistols costume with battle armor (or an energy aura acting as a sheild). Energy blasts come from the pistols, and any invulnerability could be masked as the energy aura.
Costume change emote to
Mech costume: energy blasts come from point on the armor (hopefully there're many sockets: hands, wrist, shoulder, chest, feet?), and the invulnerability comes from the armor itself.
Pretty good setup I think to achieve a mech toon.
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I wouldn't be opposed to having a "dual powerset" option for characters that allowed a moderate change in physical form and capability. But there would need to be a real cost associated with it. Your mech suit idea is one of the better options I've seen. If the mech suit was "loaded for bear" then I would think the alternate form would need to be very weak to compensate. The other option would be to give both forms about the same overall power level, but significantly different skillsets. The mech could be fairly tough but lacking firepower, while out of the power suit your character could be pure stealth (so she can stay alive long enough for the suit to regenerate). Balancing this would be a real challenge but it would really open up some cool possibilities. I imagine Ghost Rider jumping off his bike and returning to his mortal form in order to get past some security guards without incident - that kind of thing. As for full-on vehicles? In the main game world I would limit them greatly. They would have no more utility than WoW mounts, and possibly not even that level when it came to flying. No city - esp if it has super-powered law enforcement - is going to allow crazy people in costumes to fly their insane contraptions all over the place. The public safety hazard is just too great. However, I could see vehicles being allowed in certain missions and battlefields, but I fear most players would spend 99% of their time in those areas.
Ty, I do agree there should be a noticeable difference between the two modes. I don't really like just making one side being strong and the other weak because it too easy for it to exploitable. But I do like the idea of different skill sets. The idea of one form being the combat form and the other a support or one form being melee and one being ranged seems like an interesting concept and would allow those who have less time to devote to the game the ability to have more play styles out of a single character.
But Tannim222 is saying that we are not going to see any version of this transformation-esque set for some time after the games release so they can do it justice.
Vehicles are always going to be a hard thing for a game to include in a superhero mmo and for bigger reasons than just suspension of disbelief. Trying to design an ability that simulates a vehicle when you already have abilities that let you teleport or swing on a rope would need some new mechanic the other abilities don't have. I always assumed that if MWM included large scale vehicles they would just use them as aesthetics for movement abilities like a hover car for fly, rocket skates for speed, ect.
I'm an engineer...I need this in chart/graph form.
I think there is a lot of confusion around the way powers are going to work with aesthetic decoupling. It'd be really great if you could lay that out, in the next update perhaps. It seems that the terminology is inconsistent as well. So locking some of that down in an update would help everyone get on the same page. Of course getting the dev digest working would be a boon too.
Second Chance: https://store.missingworldsmedia.com/CityOfTitans/SecondChance/
Dev Tracker: http://cityoftitans.com/forum/fixing-dev-digest
Dev Comments: https://cityoftitans.com/forum/dev-comments
There is a chart for Classification/Specification (Primary/Secondary) powersets [url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/updated-classification-and-specification-chart]Here[/url]. Is that what you wanted?
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I think that chart only covers the "Role" and maybe "play style" I would like to see something that covered the play style, theme, and damage type. These have been discussed to a degree in other places at various times, reason one to get the dev digest working. I'd like to see something that provided definitions and examples for each tier of character/power design. Along with how that might affect aesthetic decoupling.
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Okay, I believe we've never been given any details about that, then.
Aesthetic Decoupling simply means that Animations and Visual Effects have no effect on the mechanics of the powers.
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Fireheart
From my understanding powers are essentially made of three layers:
1) Purpose: Damage, protection, buff/debuff, CC and so on. This is essentially the category of the power set.
2) Play style and thematic style: Melee/ranged focused, single target/AoE focused, hands on/off focused and maybe a few more "focuses". Couple that with the secondary effect and/or damage type. This is what makes that power set unique within that category.
3) Aesthetics: Not much to say, it's just what the power will look like. The only way layer 1 and 2 affect aesthetic decoupling is in what animations and effects one can choose for a given power, not in how it works.
Though having an official post on this would be very nice I think it won't be easy to present this in a graph-style, primarily since play style and thematic style of layer 2 run parallel to each other in regards to choice combinations.
That chart's out of date. One of the updates clarified a couple classes and they contradict ZombieMan's chart. I'd also love an official one.
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Zombie Man's chart Was Official at the time of publication, and the only thing that I've seen changed is specific AT Names. Everything else is still accurate, to my knowledge.
That said, I'd be unsurprised if there were more minor changes, given that that chart is 2 years old, or so. Still, the basic format of Primaries and Secondaries is wholly consistent with City of Heroes, so it makes sense that it would be consistent with City of Titans.
If you want an Unofficial Chart, well, that was [url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/ultimate-classification-and-specification-chart]HERE[/url].
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Fireheart