Melee power customisation: Choosing to add Typed damage

[ninja surprise]

tl;dr: Add a power customization to the smashing/lethal melee sets that lets you change the damage type.

 

Reason for the ask: To enhance role play and thematic character creation and to get the dang sets to match costume options.

 

This would allow creating a War Mace toon with the Tech Mace and have it cause some energy damage,

Claws with the Vanguard blades colored purple doing Psionic damage (simultaneously satisfying those asking for "only blade" options on the Psionic Melee set),

Stone Melee with the Lava skin, doing some Fire damage, or Crystal skin colored bluish with some Cold damage,

Dual Blades with the Fire and Ice 2, causing fire damage, or the VK-99 Event Horizion with some Energy or Fire damage depending on what color is chosen for the blades,

A Broadsword / Shield villain with the Dark Elemental shield using the Fire and Ice blade colored black with some Negative damage,

Super Strength or Martial Arts customized with an aura and doing something besides just pure Smashing damage.

 

With this, we could combine Origins, weapons, and auras into amazing hero or dastardly villainous combinations! You could use a /cce costume change emote to change your costume and damage type mid-battle and RP to victory!

 

This would only apply to the pure smashing/lethal sets: Battle Axe, Broadsword, Claws, Katana, Martial Arts, Dual Blades, Super Strength, War Mace, etc.

 

Implementation: add a checkbox or set of radio buttons that lets the player substitute a percent of S/L damage for another damage type, Sorta like Swap Ammo but at the character creation screen.

For instance, Pick your power set, then:

• Modify damage type:
  • Energy
  • Negative
  • Psionic
  • Fire
  • Cold
• Choose Percentage Swap. This could be a standard/max 25% substitution, or multi-choice:
  • 75% S/L, 25% Typed
  • 50% / 50%
  • 25% S/L, 75% Typed
  • 100% Typed

 

Could be in exchange for a change in endurance cost per attack, or all costs and total damage kept the same. Most S/L sets have some sort of secondary effect, such as stun, KD/KB, etc, and this would not change anything besides the base damage type. 

 

Personally it drives me nuts making a Tech character who, in 50 levels, can only create one sword that can only do lethal damage. Or a Magic character that can't do anything beside summon the same basic attack set. And I can't bring myself to choose a costume item that doesn't match what the power does, it's just so sad!

 

I don't know how difficult this would be, but it would be equivalent to exponentially expanding the number and variety of powersets in the game.

[Steampunkette]

So... Powers are baked in whole. Everything from the Damage Type to the Endurance Cost to the Animation time has to be put together so that the engine can check the database for the right power at the right times to make it look like your character is swinging a sword.

 

Like an old fashioned Telephone Board with all the little wires and the overworked women rocking headsets.

 

You tell it to grab "Slash" and it goes and grabs slash and plugs it in.

 

In order to have "Slash, Psionic Damage, 75/25%" you'd need a separate plug for it. And a separate plug for Slash, Toxic Damage, 25/75%" or Psionic 25 or 50. Each one would require it's own separate power for the engine to grab out of the database and play out.

 

You're asking the Devs to make as many powersets as there are damage types and powers in an exponential growth.

 

So let's say you want Broadsword. It has 9 powers. You want it to be Psionic, there's nine more. You want it to also have fire, cold, energy, and negative, well now you've ballooned the Broadsword Powerset to 54 power in 6 different sets... But you want them to be mix and matched to every possible combination ('Cause powersets are their own Plugs in the system, not interchangeable pieces) so you can do Psionic with one swing and Fire with the next. Well...

 

That would require literally thousands of copies of the Broadsword Powerset to cover all the possible combinations.

Broadsword Slashing

T1: Slash

T2: Slash

T3: Slash

T4: Slash

T5: Slash

T6: Slash

T7: Slash

T8: Slash

T9: Slash

 

Broadsword Slashing with 1 Psionic.

T1: Slash

T2: Slash

T3: Slash

T4: Slash

T5: Slash

T6: Slash

T7: Slash

T8: Slash

T9: Psionic

 

Broadsword Slashing with 1 Psionic and 1 Energy

T1: Slash

T2: Slash

T3: Slash

T4: Slash

T5: Energy

T6: Slash

T7: Slash

T8: Slash

T9: Psionic

 

The bloat and the effort required just to -catalogue- all the possible combinations for 1 powerset is mindboggling. And then doing it for Warmace, Titan Weapons, Staff, Battle Axe, Street Justice (You know you want fire-uppercuts), Martial Arts, and on and on and on...

 

And then quadruple it if you want to be able to do 100% one type, 50% each type, 75/25% each type, and 25%/75% each type. Multiple that by 6 times if you want to be able to do the other part of the different types something other than Slashing.

 

It's not going to happen unless the Devs have or intend to completely alter how powers are stored and understood by the game.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Steampunkette

[Rylas]

I think going back and reworking entire sets to have a swap-ammo like feature isn't going to be terirbly feasible. But your suggestion touches on an idea I've been thinking about, as well as a porblem I've noticed in sets in general. Being me, this is all melee focused, but it lines up with OP's idea. 

 

The problem: it seems as though when it comes to making themed characters, specifically those who would be based on ice/fire/negative damage types, the game has left players one choice per category and left it at that. There's plenty of options for doing S/L and energy damage, so why not the other way around. For example, why not have a ice themed melee set that wasn't as focused on soft control?

 

The idea: make a new melee set that has a swap ammo feature. The swap would allow for ice, fire or negative damage. ThIs way, we don't have to make 3 sets in order to allow players options for their themed characters.  They could always stick to just one of the damage types. Or, you could just play it like the melee version of dual pistols. 

 

Or, we could just have more ice/fire/negative damage type melee sets made. And do the same for other range and control power sets. It would just be more time investment. 

[Steampunkette]

3 minutes ago, Rylas said:

I think going back and reworking entire sets to have a swap-ammo like feature isn't going to be terirbly feasible. But your suggestion touches on an idea I've been thinking about, as well as a porblem I've noticed in sets in general. Being me, this is all melee focused, but it lines up with OP's idea. 

 

The problem: it seems as though when it comes to making themed characters, specifically those who would be based on ice/fire/negative damage types, the game has left players one choice per category and left it at that. There's plenty of options for doing S/L and energy damage, so why not the other way around. For example, why not have a ice themed melee set that wasn't as focused on soft control?

 

The idea: make a new melee set that has a swap ammo feature. The swap would allow for ice, fire or negative damage. ThIs way, we don't have to make 3 sets in order to allow players options for their themed characters.  They could always stick to just one of the damage types. Or, you could just play it like the melee version of dual pistols. 

 

Or, we could just have more ice/fire/negative damage type melee sets made. And do the same for other range and control power sets. It would just be more time investment. 

Sort of a Sorcerous Melee? OH! Or just "Elemental Melee"! 

 

Make all the sets use fairly generic particle effects that could be colored different ways and have the first and second powers of the set both be an attack and a 'Grant' power, like Adaptation or Swap Ammo, where you get the additional types.

 

Have the first one be Fire/Ice, the second one be Energy/Negative. Have the attacks normally do Crushing damage and then the admixture powers change them in toggle format. People who are really dedicated could color their attacks differently and use macros to toggle-swap when they attack with a given power?

 

Might be nifty, but it'd also feel very generic in the end... Me? I like the different styles being what they are, and then I just recolor and roleplay.

[Rylas]

7 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

Sort of a Sorcerous Melee? OH! Or just "Elemental Melee"! 

Ha! Elemental Melee was my original thought for the name. 

7 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

Make all the sets use fairly generic particle effects that could be colored different ways and have the first and second powers of the set both be an attack and a 'Grant' power, like Adaptation or Swap Ammo, where you get the additional types.

 

Have the first one be Fire/Ice, the second one be Energy/Negative. Have the attacks normally do Crushing damage and then the admixture powers change them in toggle format. People who are really dedicated could color their attacks differently and use macros to toggle-swap when they attack with a given power?

 

Might be nifty, but it'd also feel very generic in the end... Me? I like the different styles being what they are, and then I just recolor and roleplay.

You're pretty much describing my thoughts on how to execute it. My idea was smashing damage as the base and toggles for ice, fire and negative each. Giving each toggle their own secondary effect as well (-rech, DoT, and -acc respectively). 

 

I think there's potential to make it stand out, I just haven't had the time to sit down and really work it out. 

 

But honestly, even though it would be more work, it would be more fun to see other melee options for ice, fire and negative damage in their own sets. Like, a negative energy damage set that had more AoE damage (say 1 or 2 more powers than DM) and had less utility powers. So no heal or +end attacks. The -to hit could remain, but it could be played completely different while offering a different form of negative damage. 

 

Role playing is always an option, sure. And there's nothing wrong with that. But it wouldn't hurt to spruce up the melee catalog with something other than another smashing, lethal or energy based set. I see good reasoning for them being more prevelant, but it's entirely lop-sided now. 

[Haijinx]

This really would change the fundamental way the game plays ..

So i don't think its a good idea for this game. 

 

 

[Steampunkette]

2 minutes ago, Rylas said:

Ha! Elemental Melee was my original thought for the name. 

You're pretty much describing my thoughts on how to execute it. My idea was smashing damage as the base and toggles for ice, fire and negative each. Giving each toggle their own secondary effect as well (-rech, DoT, and -acc respectively). 

 

I think there's potential to make it stand out, I just haven't had the time to sit down and really work it out. 

 

But honestly, even though it would be more work, it would be more fun to see other melee options for ice, fire and negative damage in their own sets. Like, a negative energy damage set that had more AoE damage (say 1 or 2 more powers than DM) and had less utility powers. So no heal or +end attacks. The -to hit could remain, but it could be played completely different while offering a different form of negative damage. 

 

Role playing is always an option, sure. And there's nothing wrong with that. But it wouldn't hurt to spruce up the melee catalog with something other than another smashing, lethal or energy based set. I see good reasoning for them being more prevelant, but it's entirely lop-sided now. 

So we'd still have 'Dark Melee' but we'd create something like a 'Shadowfighting' powerset?

 

I could be down with that. New powersets that use old themes in new ways.  Could have some of it's attacks use Savage Melee animations to represent things like Vampires or Shadow Demons but with Dark or Soul Noir VFX tied to them on the impacts?

 

 

Or a Flaming Fighter powerset that takes powers from Street Justice and Radiation Melee, adds fire effects to them, and such? Could even coat your hands in fire like Fire Blast does when you ready an attack.

 

[Rylas]

1 minute ago, Steampunkette said:

So we'd still have 'Dark Melee' but we'd create something like a 'Shadowfighting' powerset?

 

I could be down with that. New powersets that use old themes in new ways.  Could have some of it's attacks use Savage Melee animations to represent things like Vampires or Shadow Demons but with Dark or Soul Noir VFX tied to them on the impacts?

Pretty much. It could even have a bit of control added in. Maybe a "possession punch" that works on minions and requires stacking for lieutenants. Or an AoE like Footstomp animation the creates a small Tar Patch. 

1 minute ago, Steampunkette said:

 

Or a Flaming Fighter powerset that takes powers from Street Justice and Radiation Melee, adds fire effects to them, and such? Could even coat your hands in fire like Fire Blast does when you ready an attack.

 

Another fire one would be tricky. There's no secondary effect for fire other than more damage. But perhaps a mechanic could be built around how it spreads it's damage. Like Contamination, but maybe with slightly different implementation. 

[Leogunner]

The theme, look and customization of a set is what's important, not what the combat log says the type of damage is.

[Steampunkette]

10 minutes ago, Rylas said:

Pretty much. It could even have a bit of control added in. Maybe a "possession punch" that works on minions and requires stacking for lieutenants. Or an AoE like Footstomp animation the creates a small Tar Patch. 

Another fire one would be tricky. There's no secondary effect for fire other than more damage. But perhaps a mechanic could be built around how it spreads it's damage. Like Contamination, but maybe with slightly different implementation. 

How aboooout...

 

Oh. -Res for some powers and -End for others? Call it an 'Overheating' mechanic where you basically go for a Melt Armor and Heat Stroke sort of concept?

 

Or we could make the powerset -completely- Single-Target... but then add a growing AoE effect to every power. Call it 'Wildfire'. Every time you hit your target you grant your target a stack of Wildfire. Wildfire stacks up to 5 times, but does not get refreshed with new hits, sort of like Savage Melee's Frenzy.

 

When you hit a target with Wildfire on them, it chains a portion of the damage to another target. With two stacks it chains to 2 targets. 3 stacks to three, and so on. And then have a few powers that double the chain effect. Hit with the 'AoE' attack (still single target) on a target with 5 stacks and it chains to 10 targets.

 

Could call that attack: Spreads like Wildfire.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Steampunkette

[Steampunkette]

Oh! We could call their Build Up 'Fan the Flames' and have it apply or refresh 5 stacks to all enemies within 10ft (Max of 10) in addition to the normal BU effects.

 

Wouldn't let you chain off chains or anything, but it would let you instantly mark your target for AoE devastation.

[Rylas]

Please, oh please, let's call the set Firestarter Melee!!

[Jaack]

Would it be possible to kind of implement the OP's idea with enhancements?

 

Like an enhancement that halves your lethal damage, but adds a 100% proc for fire damage equal to half the original damage.

[Steampunkette]

16 minutes ago, Jaack said:

Would it be possible to kind of implement the OP's idea with enhancements?

 

Like an enhancement that halves your lethal damage, but adds a 100% proc for fire damage equal to half the original damage.

The KB to KD enhancement functions by Debuffing your power. It takes what's there and sets it to 0.67. It does this for any power because KD is a singular value: 0.67.

 

'Half' is a relative value. It depends on the individual power. So a single 'One size fits all' solution won't work.

 

You'd need to go into the powers database and create a buuuuuunch of modifications to the powers themselves to create an 'If this, then this' logic for each and every power and for each and every 'damage changing' enhancement.

[ninja surprise]

4 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

So... Powers are baked in whole. Everything from the Damage Type to the Endurance Cost to the Animation time has to be put together so that the engine can check the database for the right power at the right times to make it look like your character is swinging a sword.

[snippage]

 

The bloat and the effort required just to -catalogue- all the possible combinations for 1 powerset is mindboggling. And then doing it for Warmace, Titan Weapons, Staff, Battle Axe, Street Justice (You know you want fire-uppercuts), Martial Arts, and on and on and on...

 

And then quadruple it if you want to be able to do 100% one type, 50% each type, 75/25% each type, and 25%/75% each type. Multiple that by 6 times if you want to be able to do the other part of the different types something other than Slashing.

 

Thank you so much for the horrifying explanation. I expected it to produce exponential results but not quite like that!

Just to clarify: I'd only been thinking one global setting per costume, i.e. on the Power Customization screen it'd change all the attacks to the same setting. So keeping it simple would be an yes/no switch and then the choice for secondary damage. That would "only" multiply the powersets by 5... But then we'd have five times as many power combos!!

 

I know there's always worry about balance and I have no idea how this would play out. 

Sets based on exotic damage have secondary effects from the type: cold slows, fire DoTs, negative -ToHit, etc. This wouldn't bring any elemental secondary effects, just straight modification of damage type.

 

Too bad the enhancement method Jaack mentioned isn't viable either, that was an alternative I thought about. A proc that simply changes the damage type 100% of the time instead of adding bonus damage.

[ninja surprise]

1 hour ago, Leogunner said:

The theme, look and customization of a set is what's important, not what the combat log says the type of damage is.

Pretty much, until you want to do a different damage type.  You gotta be really strong in the RP game to color a fire blaster white and call it ice.

[Steampunkette]

6 minutes ago, ninja surprise said:

 

Thank you so much for the horrifying explanation. I expected it to produce exponential results but not quite like that!

Just to clarify: I'd only been thinking one global setting per costume, i.e. on the Power Customization screen it'd change all the attacks to the same setting. So keeping it simple would be an yes/no switch and then the choice for secondary damage. That would "only" multiply the powersets by 5... But then we'd have five times as many power combos!!

 

I know there's always worry about balance and I have no idea how this would play out. 

Sets based on exotic damage have secondary effects from the type: cold slows, fire DoTs, negative -ToHit, etc. This wouldn't bring any elemental secondary effects, just straight modification of damage type.

 

Too bad the enhancement method Jaack mentioned isn't viable either, that was an alternative I thought about. A proc that simply changes the damage type 100% of the time instead of adding bonus damage.

You wouldn't be able to set it on a different costume slot. It would be a wholly different powerset that you select at character creation and get stuck with the rest of your career. There's no way for the game to remove your current powerset and replace it with another. It's basically 'Baked In' to your specific character the same way powers are baked into specific Powersets.

 

So even if they made 5 Broadsword powersets with just the elemental types and psionic, you'd still be stuck with just one type for your whole career on that character.

[ninja surprise]

3 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

You wouldn't be able to set it on a different costume slot. It would be a wholly different powerset that you select at character creation and get stuck with the rest of your career. There's no way for the game to remove your current powerset and replace it with another. It's basically 'Baked In' to your specific character the same way powers are baked into specific Powersets.

 

So even if they made 5 Broadsword powersets with just the elemental types and psionic, you'd still be stuck with just one type for your whole career on that character.

That's darn sad.  This is just the tip of my pipe-dream power customization & crafting system. 

Good thing the game is still so much fun!

 

Thanks for the explanations Steampunkette! If only there were a way to change how this chunk works.

[Leogunner]

3 hours ago, ninja surprise said:

Pretty much, until you want to do a different damage type.  You gotta be really strong in the RP game to color a fire blaster white and call it ice.

It's not that hard. Consider that if you touch something extremely cold, it could feel like it's burning, likely because it's destroying nerve tissue.  I think the harder RP is making ice into fire as the concept of frozen flames is something in fantasy but you just can't customize ice to look anything like flames...or any set to look like some kind of frozen flame.

 

I've made Psychic into Cold too.  And Darkness into Emotions and Radiation into Radiance(holy).  And Spines into knives.  Frankly, swapping damage types does practically nothing if you want to create a power that is more creative than "this sword cuts with lasers!" or something.

[TheAdjustor]

Seems the simplest way to do this would be with a pool power similar to enflame that would let you add extra damage of a given type to your attacks.

[Crysta Clear]

It sounds like what you're really asking for is a pair of new sets, one for Melee Damage and one for PBAoE Damage.

 

They would be full of procs of different damage types, and their set bonuses would be absent, or at the very least, not very good. Currently, builds that slot tons of procs in one power give up their set bonuses to do so, and we do not want to introduce power creep.

 

It is important to keep them on par with existing procs available to Melee and PBAoE Damage sets. Probably best to make them equal to orange set procs.

 

For example, in the Melee Damage category, Mako's Bite: Chance of Damage (Lethal) and Touch of Death: Chance of Damage (Negative) both add 71.75 damage, with a base proc chance of 58%.

 

In the PBAoE Damage category it seems like the numbers are the same, with the relevant procs from Obliteration, Eradication or Scirocco's Dervish -- base 58% chance to deal 71.75 bonus damage. These are, of course, and should be, modified by PPM.

 

Example:

Melee Damage Set -- Elemental Strike

Elemental Strike: Chance for Fire Damage (58% to deal 71.75)
Elemental Strike: Chance for Cold Damage (58% to deal 71.75)
Elemental Strike: Chance for Energy Damage (58% to deal 71.75)
Elemental Strike: Chance for Negative Energy Damage (58% to deal 71.75)
Elemental Strike: Chance for Toxic Damage (58% to deal 71.75)
Elemental Strike: Chance for Psionic Damage (58% to deal 71.75)

(Set bonuses do nothing to avoid power creep with PPM builds that slot lots of procs into high-recharge powers.)
(2): Increase whichever stat you want to use as a placeholder by 0. 
(3): Increase whichever stat you want to use as a placeholder by 0.
(4): Increase whichever stat you want to use as a placeholder by 0.
(5): Increase whichever stat you want to use as a placeholder by 0.
(6): Increase whichever stat you want to use as a placeholder by 0.

-------------------------------

PBAoE Damage Set -- Elemental Sweep

Elemental Sweep: Chance for Fire Damage (58% to deal 71.75)
Elemental Sweep: Chance for Cold Damage (58% to deal 71.75)
Elemental Sweep: Chance for Energy Damage (58% to deal 71.75)
Elemental Sweep: Chance for Negative Energy Damage (58% to deal 71.75)
Elemental Sweep: Chance for Toxic Damage (58% to deal 71.75)
Elemental Sweep: Chance for Psionic Damage (58% to deal 71.75)

(Set bonuses do nothing to avoid power creep with PPM builds that slot lots of procs into high-recharge powers.)
(2): Increase whichever stat you want to use as a placeholder by 0.
(3): Increase whichever stat you want to use as a placeholder by 0.
(4): Increase whichever stat you want to use as a placeholder by 0.
(5): Increase whichever stat you want to use as a placeholder by 0.
(6): Increase whichever stat you want to use as a placeholder by 0.

This way, you could slot them all, and give up your set bonuses, and any ability to enhance that power any other ways. Or you can use it for what it's intended for, and pick one or two elements that suit your concept, and apply them to each of your damaging powers that you want to thematically deal appropriate damage with.

Edited September 16, 2019 by Crysta Clear

[Razor Cure]

On 9/16/2019 at 4:13 AM, Leogunner said:

The theme, look and customization of a set is what's important, not what the combat log says the type of damage is.

That totally depends on if you are playing from a totally RP, theme perspective, or from a performance point. Look at a lot of the old smash/lethal sets..Mace, axe, AR..these are also some of the worst performing in game. I cant speak for everyone, but I know I wouldn't play the most super awesome flashy looking Powerset, if it hit baddies like a damp tissue.

 

On 9/16/2019 at 10:01 AM, Crysta Clear said:

It sounds like what you're really asking for is a pair of new sets, one for Melee Damage and one for PBAoE Damage.

 

They would be full of procs of different damage types, and their set bonuses would be absent, or at the very least, not very good. Currently, builds that slot tons of procs in one power give up their set bonuses to do so, and we do not want to introduce power creep.

I have no idea of teh mechanics, but could an IO set change the damage type of an attack? Or add to it? I know Fiery Embrace is (or used to be, is it a straight up +damage now) sorta like that, and added Fire Damage to 'normal' attacks, based on their base damage. Or something.

[Leogunner]

6 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

Look at a lot of the old smash/lethal sets..Mace, axe, AR..these are also some of the worst performing in game. 

[Crysta Clear]

Creating a power wholecloth that affects other powers requires editing every single other power it could possibly affect, to add in an alternate case for when the buff is active. It's not going to happen. Similarly, changing the damage type entirely is unlikely to happen.

 

The best you're likely to get is an elemental damage proc. Which makes sense, because flaming swords won't stop dealing Lethal damage just because they're on fire. They'll just also occasionally deal fire damage.

Edited September 17, 2019 by Crysta Clear