If the item in question helps the character overcome some obstacle that they cannot manage by themselves, it is a temporary power. Often this temporary power is obtained in the guise of some type of gadget/machine/gear, which should not be confused with the game mechanic that carries the name gear.

Spiderman's web slingers, the Ironman suit, Batman's gadgets, and Cable's guns are visually represented as, loosely speaking, gear. However, those are not gear in the game mechanic sense, either. Those are their powers. The only 'gear', in this context, is the visual representation and animation of these powers. That players have the freedom to declare that their powers come from armor, guns, bilbyrangs, jewelry, or irradiated chicken nuggets (or whatever the game allows) is a far cry from being an argument for the common fantasy game representation of gear. As I said above, if any such 'gear' is found it is more appropriately considered a temporary power.

If the item in question directly enhances/alters/modifies the character's power(s), then that is CoH's/CoT's version of the 'gear' game mechanic. The main point to drive home is that this gear works under the hood, as it were, and has no cosmetic element.

cybermitheral wrote:

I am The Hulk - the only clothes I wear are those that don't tear apart.
My skin is enough to protect my from almost all damage so increasing my armour by putting on a +5 Shirt of Armour doesn't make any sense.
My Strength doesn't come from a ring or bracers either...
Im Superman. I can fly without my cape, jump tall buildings bare-footed and met bad guys with my eyebeams without optical accessories (Im sure he always takes off or lowers his disguise glasses as well so any type of optical accessory would get melted anyway).
"Gear? We don't need no stinking gear"

That's one reason I suggested that costume-based "enhancement" options might be a tolerable option that would both enhance the flexibility of your character AND still be "gear neutral.

You're the hulk, but you have a costume option that makes you into the "grey hulk" and you give it something that increases resistance to psi/mez something like that.

You're superman, but you may be wearing a "last son of krypton" outfit against general Zod's armies, which is slotted to increase aggro.

You're a talismonger- your character really only has one look, but you might swap out a talisman that increases your resistance to fire with one that increases your resistance to electricity.

Wonder woman in standard garb may be going for agilily. When she dons her heavier battle armor, she's focusing on damage resistance.

Spider Man often tinkered with his web formula, whether to make it stronger (against the rhino), conductive (against electro) or expand into a wider net (against the vulture)

Batman's pulled out more gadgets to address specific foes than I care to count.

You just get to choose what impact "different appearances" have on your character concept.
As for balance, It wouldn't be powerful enough to be an "I win", but it would satisfy some of the classic narrative of using gear to make a differrence. It doesn't even have to be an enhancement- maybe it's slot(s) a temp power that's recharges X minutes per day. Wearing the costume slot automatically adds these slots to the power tray. wearing another disables these and adds the new costume slot's....

srmalloy wrote:

chase wrote:
You just get to choose what impact "different appearances" have on your character concept.
As for balance, It wouldn't be powerful enough to be an "I win", but it would satisfy some of the classic narrative of using gear to make a differrence. It doesn't even have to be an enhancement- maybe it's slot(s) a temp power that's recharges X minutes per day. Wearing the costume slot automatically adds these slots to the power tray. wearing another disables these and adds the new costume slot's....
I fail to see any inherent advantage in tying this to a particular costume setup. What is being described is similar in concept to the buffs you could get from the Enhancement Stations in a supergroup base. Having your character 'grow' one or two 'Buff' slots as they level, with an additional category of enhancements -- 'Buff Enhancements' -- that had a limited duration of use once slotted, but which could be freely swapped in and out of the buff slots, is an interesting idea; you would be able to slot a buff to your Resistance that would make you harder to hurt for a period of time, but after a while it would become useless. Whether or not it was reflected in your costume should -- like your powers and enhancements -- be your choice; if you want to have a different costume showing you wearing heavier armor or a power pack on your back to explain why you're harder to hurt or do more damage, that's fine, but the buff shouldn't be tied to the costume slot.

True, there is no real necessity of tying this to the costume slot. It was more of a nod toward those that feel that these things NEED more substance to them, much like those that feel that origins were nearly meaningless in CoH. For all of us that are used to the look being entirely independent to your powers, there's a HUGE market out there that has been conditioned to expect the opposite and did offer criticism of CoH because of that. Adding this "selective buff" system, with tha costume tie-in gives a nod to those that want and expect gear/appearances to have some "meat" without detracting from a system that let users define what they wear and what it means.

I think we need to set some new terms to help split what we all pretty much agree on but keeps on getting raised.
Gear vs Gear (huh?)
We are all comparing the main 2 types of gear that we have been exposed to:
1) Typical Gear - this type of gear generally goes onto a 'body slot' and you can only have one on at any point in time.
Examples:
Head Slot (Helmet, Hat, Eye Patch, Ioun Stone, etc)
Feet Slot (Boots, sandals, joggers, slippers, etc)
This is typically found in MMO's such as WoW, SWTOR, Rift, etc.

2) CoH Gear (aka Enhancements) - this type of gear goes into one of potentially many slots per 'power'. Each power can have up to 6 slots (min 1) and each Power Slot can hold whatever Gear/Enh you wanted if it was related to that Power (with some limitations with IO's)
Examples:
Ranged damage power (Fire) with 6 slots (Acc, Dam, EndRed, Range, RechargeRed). This can include 2x Acc, 2x Dam, 1x EndRed, 1x Range OR 3x Acc, 3x Dam, or any combination.
Defence power with 4 slots (Def, EndRed, RechargeRed). This can include 4x Def or 3x Def, 1x EndRed or any combination.

Option 2 gives much more build flexibility as Im not limited to a single Head/shoulder/chest/arms/gloves/belt/pants/feet/rings(2)/Primary Hand and Off-hand items.
It also removes the jarring idea that putting on Boots of +2 Strength makes me punch harder, or that my Hulk has to wear something to enhance my abilities. If I want to wear Power Armour or use lots of gadgets then its up to me to make my character look like it via the Character Creator. I make the decision to explain that my survivability is based on my gear but my story and the characters look. If you see a Tank running around wearing 2 feet thick Stone or a forcefield or Plate Mail you can see that they are wearing their protection. A Tank running around in their undies either has Undies of Awesome Protection or some other means to stay alive, whether that is their skin, a magical spell or whatever.

/5c

"Gear" carries a connotation. That is the problem. Redefining that term will just confuse those not familiar with the new nomenclature. You have to stop using the word and adopt a lexicon that is more generically descriptive and/or definitive. I propose:

Costume Pieces = Just what it says. Purely cosmetic items that may or not be available from the initial character creation. Only affects character appearance. These may include default or combat "auras", but again, have no affect beyond appearance. These are selected and semi-permanently applied by the player and are not affected by outside factors.

Boosts = (Since that is what the Devs have handed us so far) These are items that affect how a character's powers work within the game framework. They are semi-permanently slotted into the character's powers or stats(if those are a thing) and are automatically calculated when said power is activated.

Charge-Ups = (other ideas welcome, short of Dev info) These are what CoH called "Inspirations" these are dropped by mobs during combat or bought from vendors and give short duration plusses to various stats when activating powers. +Accuracy, +Damage, +Resistance, etc. They have no permanent affect on appearance beyond the activation and/or the duration of the item.

Temporary Powers = These are items that grant a specific ability to a character. They have a limited time/use# duration. They are slotted and activated seperately from normal Powers and cannot be enhanced with Boosts. They have no permanent affect on appearance beyond the activation and/or the duration of the item.

These are the four things I can think of that we are continuously talking about. If I'm missing a general category altogether, please add it. I also supect that, in the fullness of time, there may be some Rare Specific Items that straddle categories, or are some kind of exception to the rules. I'm just trying to define terms, here. As always, if you Rednames have this figured out already it would save all us supplicants some headache.

Sorry Xnarl the fact that I keep on seeing people discussing gear vs gear made me think this hadn't been done :(.
When I see "X new Posts" I jump straight to the new posts and don't re-read what I read a day or a week ago so forget what has already been posted.

Fireheart wrote:

My preference is that my hero's ability comes from within himself and is not dependent on strapping on the right gizmo.
My problem with 'gear' in general is that First I have to Find the 'plus-5 thing of whiz-bang', or buy it from a store, or pay money for the pseudo-currency used to purchase it from the game-store. And then, damit, I have to replace my 'plus 5 thing of whiz-bang' with a newer, better model, after only a few levels. Or, almost worse, I have to collect and craft the 'ultra-thing-a-matizer' to convert my whiz-bang into a Bang-whiz-bang... again, after just a few levels. If I don't continually replace my gear, then I risk falling behind and becoming a famous Gimp.
Even more, with gear, I'm not struggling with just One item, but a hat and a jacket and pants and belt and suspenders and shoes and wrist-watch and earrings and rings and... a Dozen different things. And then the next patch comes out and all of my gear becomes irrelevant, compared to the new shiny.
And that doesn't even Begin to touch the gods-awful Crafting stink-hole grind-fest necessary to support all of the gear. Which means you need to maintain a veritable army of crafting specialists, because you need Wood and Metal and Textiles and Chemicals and OTHER Metal and Leather and Gems and etc, etc, etc...
When do I get to BE A HERO, if I'm spending all, of my time Crafting?? Or, no, I can't just play any mission I want to, I have to go into the Cave of Pain over and over and over in order to have a chance of picking up the Special Thing, because, if I don't, well, I'll have to wear the big sign with 'NOOB' on it, in brightly flashing colors.
City of Heroes simplified all of that.
Be Well!
Fireheart

Exactly. Remember that City of Heroes had all kinds of powers from "equipment" (note the quotes) that were quest rewards, loot (or constructed from loot more accurately), temporary powers, permanent, bonus stuff from purchased super packs, etc.

I had I think over 50 minutes left on some ice shield from a lowbie reward on my main. I never finished a mission where I had a mask of something or other, just because I wanted to have the mask!

We don't need a literal slot for these things -- did anyone ever read the descriptions of powers (or enhancements for that matter)? "You found a ring that does xyz!" "This is an artificial heart that boosts your metabolism."

Functionally, they are just another power clickie. No need to gum it up needlessly by requiring a slot, too. The sky's the limit in the description, if you wanna roleplay costume pieces.