megaericzero

Just for clarity: Is that an issue with the limited graphics or that it's beyond your suspension of disbelief? (Or something else?) The quoted part specifically.

It's a funny punchline but not absurd. If you managed to wedge something that big into an object (or person), you've definitely done some structural damage. It/they could very well be one more stiff breeze away from crumbling; pushing it the rest of the way through is feasible.

Don't forget that Blaters, Controllers/Dominators, Corruptors/Defenders, and Masterminds can all access Rise of the Phoenix through ancillary power pools. So...

Couple thoughts. 1) This first one is mostly directed to Poptarts: is hitstop more exclusive to Japanese media? The majority of examples in the video linked were games originating in Japan - Street Fighter, Monster Hunter, Guilty Gear - and games that follow that media style like Skullgirls. They're also mostly fighting games. I'm used to it, personally, which is to say that I hadn't initially noticed. For people who don't consume that kind of media, it can be quite off-putting. There's always a question of how much to accommodate media tropes outside of western comic books since that's what the game is rooted in, even in the case of alternate options. 2) I know Poptarts established the suggestion is for the feel and to disregard realism but there's also looking at it as the weapon not cleaving in a single blow and the user continuing the swing to eventually cut through. Sure, that makes it weaker but trades raw power for showing the person's tenacity. Here's a couple gif examples; I don't think them being punches diminishes the point that the hits connect, visibly stop, and the user continues to apply force which could easily apply to a melee weapon swing. (There's also a good number of western videogame examples in Mortal Kombat's x-ray attacks but those are quite gory so I'll abstain from posting/linking and let those curious look them up.)

TBH I haven't been reading every post in this thread diligently. I'd assume the hitstop was baked into the alternate animation, since I assume the engine isn't even capable of detecting the collision on top of the fact that it can't blend animations.

As a power customization option, then, for those who want it? (As per the usual response.) -- Tangentially related, since Poptarts keeps mentioning perceived impact: I do think the power FX added later on live lack the same impact as early sets. For instance, all the later electrical and flame effects, such as Praetorian Clockwork. Electrical/Fire Blast and Melee sound way better with all the crackling, thuds, explosions, etc. Ion Judgment hits hard but it feels like a wet noodle because it's so soft.

I believe - and it's just a guess - Katana, Broad Sword, etc. are meant to be assumed as making glancing blows or wedging in only partially and being yanked back out as opposed to Titan Weapons cleaving clean through. If the graphics weren't PG13, TW would be a very gory set. (I don't feel strongly about the suggestion for hitstop itself. I agree it "feels" better coming from Monster Hunter, unrealistic/wrong or not.)

My two cents: I prefer having the red-white-and-blue boy scout (Superman, Captain America, Optimus Prime, All-Might, Statesman) and I think killing Statesman (and Sister Psyche) was a dumb stunt to drum-up interest from the shock factor which, sure, comics do all the time but that doesn't make it a good decision, but I wholly agree that death should mean something and the decision should be treated with finality in mind because flippant resurrections completely undermine the death and anything that stemmed from it in the first place. Like Photrius, I would prefer he didn't die in the first place but that bridge has already been crossed. Given the mentions of the dev AMA, it would be nice to have him return via Tyrant getting a redemption. It would, however, need to be a carefully planned road with him starting depowered from the Well and working his way back up from rock-bottom both in physical strength and in his character so that he deserves it by the end, and metered out in a way that he doesn't steal the spotlight from the player during or after. A very tight squeeze.

On a different note: Sea Monsters (Mastermind primary) "You command a school of humanoid monstrosities from under the sea. These denizens of the deep are known to drag sailors and unwary landlubbers to their demise. These creatures are used to the frigid temperatures and crushing pressure of the deep ocean and, as such, are often resilient to cold and smashing damage." POWER TABLE Spiny Urchins (Ranged) Foe Moderate Damage (Lethal), -Defense Summon Fishmen (Location) Summon Henchman (Fishman ×3) Shark Attack (Ranged) Foe High Damage-over-Time (Lethal), Knockback Monstrous Growth (Ranged AOE) Henchman Equip Urchin Spray (Ranged Cone) Foe Moderate Damage (Lethal), Knockback Call Hunters (Location) Summon Henchman (Hunter ×2) Lurk (PBAOE) Henchman +Stealth, +Defense, +Special Swamp Creature (Location) Summon Henchman (Swamp Creature) Primal Evolution (Ranged AOE) Henchman Upgrade POWER DETAILS (wrapped in a spoiler tag so this post isn't gigantic) HENCHMEN DETAILS (also wrapped in a spoiler to save space)

I've been meaning to level a concept build with similar effect. Martial Arts with PROCs loaded on top of the existing CC effects, cognitive interface, and control hybrid. The only thing lacking is the alcohol breath. Looking at the wiki, Scrappers' fire mastery copies the tanker/brute version, which has Fire Ball instead of Fire Breath.

No problem. Let's run the tape forward a little in the context of this suggestion. It's free to make accounts, so people can just make infinite alt accounts, each locking in its "namesake." The name-release policy is now effectively null.

According to the Paragon devs, Null was - for whatever reason - the only way they could code it in, along with anything else he offers. He's the MacGuyver fix to whatever the menus need to do but can't.

Personally, I whole-heartedly agree with this sentiment. I'm sure it'll get hand-waived as free badge progress.

The open beta forum says otherwise. There's been some harsh criticism but also genuine improvements to ideas specifically because of feedback.

Unrelated but I'm gonna shout it into the void again: can we please fix power effect short-listings to distinguish protection when it's protection? (Not quoting to respond to you, Rudra; just to show the tangential relation.)

I'd imagine it's on purpose, as others have touched on. Fiery Aura is fantastic at heat resistance; not so much cold. Vice-versa for Ice Armor. Invulnerability caps smashing/lethal easy but has a big psi hole. Willpower has great psionic mitigation and scaling regeneration but middling raw resist/defense numbers otherwise. And some sets have mez protection that others don't. The only catch-all for melee mez protection is disorient, hold, sleep, immobilize. It's important to keep in mind the whole armor set, as the ones that have less protections probably have higher raw numbers or some other tools that the sets with fear/KB/confuse protection don't. EDIT: If it's renewed mobs that this is coming up with, it could be the endless cat-and-mouse/arms-race of game development. One day, game devs wake up and go "hey, maybe some classes shouldn't be able to shrug off mez completely. Add more of the ones they don't always have protection to!" Then the meta shifts to incorporate fear protection and they go "okay make the knockback so high it's effectively unresistible." Then the community builds around capped defenses and the devs go "make auto-hit attacks." And we go in circles. (I don't know that that's necessarily the case here but figured it was worth bringing up.)

I think you missed my point. I was saying we still have an available niche in having a defensive arsenal which could be made into a thematically-generic armor set that covers both that type of power armor as well as other, non-tech concepts. Other [power] armors could create/use fire, ice, energy, darkness, etc. or even just be durable while this hypothetical would be a swiss army knife of gadgets. To assert that we'd have to cover all conceivable gadgets is like saying we'd have to cover all conceivable uses for a given element. We would never have any power sets to begin with if that were the case. The number of uses for fire, or ice, or electricity, or darkness that aren't explored in existing sets are just as numerous.

To purposely undersell it, the HEV suit is an armor-plated hazmat suit with a built-in fitbit that's allowed to administer morphine. It gets its own health bar but I don't think the games ever explain why since it doesn't appear to have an energy barrier yet it recharges its protection. (Black Mesa has a suit-up sequence that mentions barriers but that game's a fan remake so it may not be canon.) Funny enough, Half-Life 2's anniversary is in two days so the internet is abuzz with chatter about the game right now. Not to sound like a broken record but I think we could focus on the fact that power armor usually has built-in tools and contingencies (separate from their actual weapons). Mechanically, it would look like the original Stalker version of Ninjitsu - some base protections and the rest being active defenses. Thematically, of course, we'd make it more generic where it could also be used for things like an artificer with enchanted equipment, a wizard with self-protection spells, a soldier who brought the whole arsenal, etc. Basically the armor-cousin to Traps and Devices.

I had posted my take on it here, if you're interested. What I went with for a taunt aura was a renamed version of Reaction Time from Martial Combat.

As an EAT, you could pigeonhole everyone's power armor into a specific version that they have to adhere to because story reasons. As a regular AT powerset, it's probably better to abstract power armor into "tactical armor" so it can be conceptualized as an Iron Man suit, enchanted armor, being armed to the teeth with military gear, etc. and having the VFX be just the particles (runes, HUDs, munitions) rather than any actual armor plating.

City of Heroes is very old. It's purportedly written in C and the code is a mess of spaghetti. The amount of oddities that spring up in direct opposition to modern design sensibilities are plentiful and pop up where you least expect them. Null the Gull's very existence is to address things the Paragon devs couldn't do properly in the game's menus. To speak nothing of balance concerns, Titan Weapons achieves its fast-slow dichotomy by having three versions of every attack that is useable without momentum: - the base power (the one you click on) which redirects to either - the slow version or - the fast version We also know from Back Alley Brawler of the Paragon dev team that the engine does not support animation blending. I'd hazard a guess it also doesn't support any other real-time modifications but that's conjecture on my part. IIRC a Homecoming dev mentioned - someone please correct me - that mismatching animation times to activation times causes egregious animation bugs as well. So yeah, it sucks when we crash into game code limitations. Especially when something is easy to conceptualize. (As for the original suggestion of it affecting both animation and activation times, I can't see that being added to Hasten. It's already a very, very potent effect and probably the most-picked power in the game, second only to Stamina before Fitness became inherent. Adding activation time redux to Hasten would only serve to make it even more broken or require nerfs in other areas. Heck, even making it its own power would probably just put that new power right next to Hasten on the list of must-have meta picks. I know you said nix the activation time part, Vitamin; I just wanted to add my two-cents about it.)

Erm, trying to put the thread back on topic: Yeah Dark Miasma becoming Dark Affinity for Controllers was weird. Along the same lines as Sonic Attack not being called Sonic Blast for no discernable reason. There was no name conflict and there was already a very strong precedence to keep the same name while changing a few powers in a set. See: Blasters' Dark Blast and Psychic Blast, the entirety of the Stalker and Sentinel primaries.

Uniformity has utility. Mileage may vary but there is a practical upside to it. (Before you tear me apart, I'm not saying make everything absolutely the same. I did mention a few posts up that there's only one set I think actively needs renaming, with a few minor annoyances I can live with.)

On the whole, the only one I think is actively problematic and needs change is Time Manipulation to Time Affinity (Temporal Affinity, or whatever else) because Manipulation is explicitly the Blaster secondary nomenclature. The rest are whatever. [Thing] Domination is weird but it's not like Dominators are using it for their sets. Sonic actively avoiding Blast for no good reason is annoying. I would prefer Super Strength to stay as it is, though; it's a very common super power - like the most common - with a specific name in pop culture.