McBoo
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Posts
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Quote:Originally Posted by Daemodand
It also has a damage aura from their tongues flailing at your enemies.
Uhm.... ewww....
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Quote:/signedOriginally Posted by SwellGuy
As an alternative I could support the use of merits to acquire the locked costume pieces on a character by character basis.
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Quote:So Masterminds are arguably a third option for ranged/defense that already exists in the game?Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Actually, they very much did - Masterminds. As per Jack's explanation and Castle's admission, these were designed to be the functioning tanks of City of Villains, but they are currently functioning damage dealers. Masterminds possess SIGNIFICANT amounts of survivability via Bodyguard and the ability to use team-only powers "on themselves" by proxy, they have strong support ability via HAVING those team-only powers, and they have very serious offensive capabilities via the use of their henchmen and whatever debuffs they may have in their support sets.
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Quote:Possibly but it would really just come down to rehash of existing power sets. Far better to use the same resources to create new power sets for the existing archetypes.Originally Posted by Leo_G
I'd agree, such an AT would be low on the list of 'to do's but I think if enough people express their desire for it, that could change. With a shiny inherent to work with, I think it's possible to make such a combo fun and unique.
So again we come full circle. The option already exists in the game and given the chance to release five new standard archetypes in City of Villains, which was released in conjunction with Enhancement Diversification, the developers did not present us with a ranged/defense option.Quote:Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man
The only thing I've ever seen even remotely like that (with the current batch of developers) is that the devs have always refused to give Dual Pistols to Scrappers.
I've never seen a redname post "No AT shall ever have ranged attacks with a defense powerset!" And even if they had... as has been pointed out in this thread several times, we now have Khelds and Soldiers of Arachnos, making that statement a lie.
Now that I think about it, Kinetic Melee may even be another option to fill in the ranged/defense gap!
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Quote:I disagree. I, for one, can attest to the validity of endurance issues at low levels. I suppose I should not have said 'If endurance at lower levels is an issue ' in my reply. As I pointed out an endurance free attack with some meaningful damage could be a boon at lower levels and, in certain situations, at higher levels.Originally Posted by Sharker_Quint
i think you should have found out if it were actually true or not first before making any suggestion like this.
My main point was that if the practice of the exercise is to address endurance issues at lower levels then we should be looking somewhere other than the attacks that cost the least amount of endurance.
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Quote:My question would be why bother if the endurance costs of Tier 1 attacks are currently low enough to be considered non-issues. If endurance at lower levels is an issue it would be more effective to add an unslottable endurance discount across the board for levels 1 to 12 that diminishes as you approach level 12 when DO enhancements become available. Thematically it could be explained as rookie heroes and villains holding back until they become more adept at conserving their energy.Originally Posted by Vitality
I want to suggest giving Tier 1 attacks the brawl treatment. Remove their endurance cost.
This messes with DPE...but I think it would be a great change.
Change nothing else...just remove the endurance cost.
This would go along way in helping the endurance starved.
What are your thoughts on this?
I am not trashing the spirit of the suggestion; I can easily see how it would help against Clockwork and Malta sappers. I am just wondering how removing the cost of the least likely offender will make that much difference for low level characters in general.
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Quote:Actually, by their own admission, the reason that the developers didn't create a ranged/defense archetype at the start was because they felt that range is it's own defense since it allows a player to deliver damage outside the range of the higher melee damage attacks.Originally Posted by Leo_G
Just to quote myself a bit regarding this question up page...the reason I think they didn't have defense/ranged ATs at the start:
"But back then, there wasn't travel suppression, no ED, mobs weren't all balanced with adequate ranged attacks with obscene range, no target caps and all sorts of other changes. So ranged/defense might really have been OP back then to a degree that they simply couldn't make such a combo work. " - Leo_G
Since that time the developers have added epic archetypes that allow for a ranged/defense power combo with rigidly controlled powersets. They have also added the ancillary and patron power pools which allow high damage/ranged archetypes to have some defense and high defense/melee archetypes to have some ranged damage. Both of these things could arguably be said to have been done to put a ranged/defense model in the game while still preserving game balance. I have a feeling this puts the creation of another ranged/defense archetype fairly low on the list of priorities.
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Quote:I disagree, the infinite monkey argument is about random chance not intentional design.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I'm sorry, but that's an infinite monkey argument.
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Quote:The thing you have to ask yourself is that if a ranged/defense archetype is perfectly valid outside the constraints of a limited number of tightly controlled powersets like the epic archetypes why didn't the developers put them together like the regular archetypes in the first place?Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
VEATs and HEATs prove that ranged/defence is not inherently unbalanced. If planned for and accounted for, ranged/defence can be a perfectly viable archetype.
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Quote:Actually it amounts to large number of possible permutations. If, for the sake of argument, we were given the option of selecting a primary upper body design (88 options) , a secondary upper body design (88 options) and a single chest detail (291 options) from the currently existing costume options for a male character that would amount to approximately 101,847,563 possible permutations if all 3 options are used. If even 1% of those permutations could be put together in an offensive or questionable way that would still be a little over 1,000,000 possibly bannable costumes. Quite a bit of work to first isolate and then code to prevent.Originally Posted by Predatoric
well the fact of the matter is there isnt going to be that many combinations, if any that can make offensive images in there static position, im not asking for the designs to be able to be moved, just to apply more than one in there standard positions.
If there is a conflict, stopping one piece being used with another isnt that hard.
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IIRC, if you 3 slot Health, Earth's Embrace and Rooted with Healing SOs you get some fairly effective regen out of pre-Granite Stone Armor with all 3 powers active. I am not sure what the numbers are but I am sure that IOs would improve your regen even more!
My own Stone tanker experience is with Stone/Ice which is highly survivable pre-Granite once you get Ice Patch. Of course Kinetic Melee looks to be fairly KD heavy so it may be that a Stone/KM tanker could be comparable in survivability to a Stone/Ice in a pre-Granite world.
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Quote:I suggested a melee/buff set in the other new archetype thread. It was more of what I envisioned the way that tankers should have been handled. It's the Brawler suggestion, check it out and let me know what you think.Originally Posted by Leo_G
I don't really play EATs...I *do* wish they'd make a melee/buff AT already though! For bonus points, call it an Enforcer!
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Quote:Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Huh. That... Sounds really far-fetched. I know what most of the existing chest patterns are, and I know chest details weren't described, so I have a really hard time even imagining what something like that would look like. And as with most other times these concerns come up, I have to ask - why not just ban people who do this? That's part of what GMs are for.
More than likely because preventing the behavior in the first place is far easier than dealing with the innumerable number of complaints and grievances caused by allowing the behavior. I can appreciate the fact that you may not be able to think of a way of combining multiple costume details with chest details to create offensive or questionable images but there are roughly 199,999 other people that may be able to do so quite easily.
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Quote:Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Huh... What "questionable designs?" When was that ever brought up officially? If you can't make naked characters now, how is putting on MORE clothes going to make that more likely? I'm sorry, I just don't follow. Do you mean adding skin-coloured patterns? Because we can't use skin colours for anything but skin. Not even white, not any more.
IIRC, it was not a question of potential character nudity. The concern with the ability to apply multiple detail layers to a costume was that the layers and colors of said layers could possibly be combined to create offensive or questionable symbols or images.
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Quote:Eh, the game as it was originally envisioned and alpha tested would have allowed players to create ranged/defense sets. The original idea was to allow you to choose any two powersets from a much larger list of powers. That proved to be much harder to balance and was scrapped for the existing system we have now.Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
That is completely and utterly illogical. The fact that something is not in the game does not automatically imply that it is imbalanced. It simply means that the devs have not implemented it. An inability to balance it is only one possible reason for them to not include it. They could equally well decide that it's doable but not worth the time and effort required or simply that it will take the game in a direction they don't want to go or any one of a number of good reasons.
The devs haven't implemented Carp Melee. It's not inherently imbalanced, it's just silly.
You make very good points about work load. Work load is always consideration and, in my mind, there are other things that take precedence over building a new archetype that for all intents and purposes already exists in the game.
As for Carp Melee I think it's the Monty Python dance animation that is slowing that down.
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Quote:Originally Posted by FredrikSvanberg
The costume generator can already be abused as it is, in countless ways. Nobody is sitting around looking at every costume that is made to make sure it's fine. The GMs take action when they get reports about copyright infringement or other questionable costumes. This would not be an exception.*shrug* This is something to take up with the developers. It was developer a few years back that brought up the offensive costume issue in response to a request for multiple layers on costumes.Quote:Originally Posted by Predatoric
Hmm with the designs available I sincerely doubt you would be able to design anything extremely offensive, other than the possibility of using the chest letters to spell out profanity.
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One of the things that stood in the way of allowing multiple layers on the costumes was the possibility of people coming up with questionable or suggestive designs through the creative combination of multiple layers and chest details. The amount of work it would take to vet every conceivable combination to avoid this kind of behavior boggles the mind.
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Quote:So what I'm hearing is that the sets you seek are possible with a liberal application of power customization.Originally Posted by BrandX
That's all fine and good.
Yup, with Kheldian's you can come very close to a Dark/Defense or Energy/Defense, and with VEATs you can make PSI/Defense or Rifle (or Backpack)/Defense.
Now take those primaries, and make a Fire Blast/Defense or a DP/Defense.
The real issue with a Range/Defense set is that if it were possible to create something like that within the confines of game balance then they would be in the game. Perhaps that is why the epic archetypes exist in the first place.
Also bear in mind that the Incarnate system is coming sometime this year which may offer more in the way of ranged attacks for high defense archetypes or defense for ranged damage archetypes. Until then we have EATs, VEATs and blappers to tide us over.
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Quote:See, I was never bothered by the existing background or story of the EATs or VEATs. I can make use of the powersets to create character concepts of my own.Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Because the EATs shoehorn you into a very narrow concept with a (mostly) fixed background and story.
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Quote:Concept and play style is up to the individual player, not the developer and we all remember how well the player base reacted when the developers tried defining fun.Originally Posted by Psiphon
Concept, playstyle and above all fun!
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Quote:Thanks for the input! A good way to balance for something like this would be to add some positional defense passives to the lower tier of the secondary power sets that could be built upon or augmented by toggles in the later tiers. Tier 1 could grant melee defense and low level smashing/lethal resistance and Tier 2 could offer ranged and AoE defense.Originally Posted by Steampunkette
As for The Brawler.
"Like invincibility" how? Point Blank AoE buffs and debuffs? I like it in theory, until you get to the "Dark" Brawler. The Dark Brawler has 2 PBAoE debuffs, one fore speed/damres, one for accuracy. This means enemies outside of the Brawler's melee reach are unaffected by his damage mitigation and, instead, are able to slaughter him from afar. Might be a balance issue you need to handle.
This would tie into the vision of Brawlers being the group fighting experts and having the natural ability to turn their enemies numbers and the push of battle to their own advantage.
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Quote:My biggest issue with this is the fact that you thought about it before getting out of bed. You may want to cut back on your CoH addiction.Originally Posted by Fusion_7
I thought about this one this morning before I got out of bed. Being that it seems the "Check to see if name is already used" button doesn't seem to work (at least it never works for me when I am building a new Toon), I thought about maybe having some kind of access to a "scrolling" type view, like in the Markets, to see what names are already in use.
For example: let's say I wanted to name my Hero or Villain Pyrotechnic as they are Fire based on their primary power sets. I would then go to the search tab to see if that name is taken under the "P's" and then immediately see that it is taken before I hit the "enter" button to go into the training zone or active new Toon zone. I know there are some of you how would say this would take up way too much processing power to do this. Well, what about in game when you do a search for others by their Archetypes or Level. This would be based on a similar function but bigger since it would have to do a system wide search for "all" Toons.
Now, if the dev's ever fix that button that says "check to see if name in use" then we could probably rule out this option. But, it seems since I've been a member (15 months) and from what others have said, that button has not worked for a long time. Maybe they will fix it on the big upgrades through GR or others, who knows?
Other than that it doesn't sound like a bad idea. I would suggest adding an auto complete feature to the superhero ID name field. So if type in Pyrotech and Pyrotechnic was taken it would show up in the list on the fly. It would also be helpful in coming up with other names as you could get some inspiration from some of the other names already in use!
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Quote:First and foremost dropping rares would lead to spawn site camping. Never a good thing.Originally Posted by kojirodensetsu
GMs are... boring! Badge? K, get it once never need it again on that toon. Merits? Ya those are insanely easy to get. Yawn!
We need to add some spice to the mix. Make them drop something that ONLY GMs drop. Something that makes people want to hunt them besides the "Hey I need 2 more merits to do a roll can we kill a GM" moments. Some examples of such things:
1. GM recipies! We have PvP recipes, why not GM ones? Could add new recipes to areas that could use some more, like targeted AoE.
2. Temp powers! And I don't mean crappy ones that go away after you use it a few times. I mean ones that people would want because they're AWESOME. Like killing Jurassik could give you a temp power that let's you wield his godly car hammer.
3. Unique inspirations! And not any normal kind of inspiration but a super special awesome kind. A kind that would like add an -acc debuff to all your attacks or make your buffs 20% better!
Also, Jurassik’s Hammer as a temp power would be all kinds of silly in the hands of even the largest player character model.
Lastly, uber powerful GM inspirations would be fairly anti-climactic, IMO, based on the length of time that your average inspiration lasts. This would more than likely lead to spawn camping to maximize
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BRAWLER
Symbol: fist smacking into palm, brown background
Sound Effect: A series of thuds and grunts of pain
Hit Points: Medium
Damage: Medium
Primary: Melee (on par with Tankers)
Secondary: Self Buff/Enemy Debuff (on par with Defenders but functionally like Invincibility)
Special Ability: Throwdown – Adds a percentage chance for each attack to deliver its damage as a short range AoE attack. In the case of natural AoE attacks the Throwdown effect will add a slight damage increase.
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Quote:Originally Posted by Psiphon
In many ways the argument would be why invite the proposed AT?
- less ranged and melee damage than a Blaster!
- less melee damage than Scrappers and Brutes!
- brings no control or buffs to the team.
It should be a well rounded AT that fills a niche and would probably be good fun to play, certainly not a Tankmage of any description.
You appear to be suggesting that the proposed archetype should fill a niche that arguably doesn't currently exist in the game.
It is possible to create something along the lines of what you are proposing by utilizing a blapper or blaptroller build. While their defenses are meager at best in comparison to scrapper secondaries, the damage output and first strike capabilities of a blapper/blaptroller offset the need for high defense/resistance numbers. Mez resistance would also be less of an issue because Defiance now allows blasters to continue to use Tier 1 and Tier 2 attacks while mezzed.
All in all, you appear to be suggesting a blapper build with natural scrapper level defenses and I can tell you from experience that such a thing would indeed be overpowered and, depending on power selection and IO slotting, possibly a tankmage.
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