Discussion: Improvements to the Warriors

[Snakebit]

Warrior Masterminds that summon thugs. 

[BazookaTwo]

On 3/15/2021 at 12:17 AM, dnomad333 said:

IIRC, the Warriors were based on the 1979 film of the same name. For the most part I would rather not deviate too far from that idea, so staying somewhat true that theme appeals to me.

That being said, updating weapons, giving the members access to newer 'natural' power sets, seems like a good idea. The only thing I'm concerned about is a radical change.

 

This. Bats, knives, titan weapons, staff (pool cues) etc. Street Justice and Martial Arts too! 

[wjrasmussen]

On 5/1/2024 at 12:49 PM, Snakebit said:

Warrior Masterminds that summon thugs. 

Just so long as those thugs are also Warrior Masterminds who can summon more warrior mastermind thugs

[gameboy1234]

Man, this thread is super old.  Ignoring the whole "it's Warrior Masterminds all the way down" meme, I think I'd like to see groups in game evolve and change.  They don't always have more powerful though, the group could evolve in different directions. 

 

The Warriors could start to sport some cybernetics so they can gain more power (but this makes them heretics to the purists, politics and drama ensue), they could gain female warriors (which start as a reaction to the all male group, more politics and drama, then they join forces), "real" warriors from Cimerora could show up (causing more politics and drama) and then the whole group could suffer a huge setback and be basically reset to something like their starting point (everything changes! nothing will be the same!).  It's more a matter of avoiding stasis imo, and not necessarily having to "power up" everything.

 

 

[Doc_Scorpion]

14 minutes ago, gameboy1234 said:

"real" warriors from Cimerora could show up (causing more politics and drama)

Keep in mind that the Warriors are based on Classical Greece, Cimerora is very emphatically modeled on Ancient Rome...  They're not the same thing at all.

[CraterLabs]

Greece and Rome are different, yeah. Having said that, though, I wouldn't mind seeing The Warriors get involved in a Cimeroran plot. Even if the Warriors are stylistically driven by 1980s movie aesthetics first and foremost, they still have that love of ancient texts and documents and such.

 

Just imagine the Warrior from Talos who goes back in time to defeat all the greatest Roman warriors, with no care for what it does to the time stream

[lemetaron]

I think the core of the Warriors that needs to be observed before an update would be modernizing them to a current-day context. I'd argue a good introductory arc and final  encounters needed to hand the narrative off from. Right now, as it stands, the Warriors start off when you get to Talos and Vanish 0.004 picoseconds after you leave.

 

So what makes the Warrior's unique? How would you recruit new members if you were made to do so by Ody? What kind of stuff would you suggest as the crimes they commit?

 

If you approach from a marketing perspective it will break down in to a few things that can feed one another. Hyper-masculine self-help types who listen to podcasts about everything from crypto to workout regiments to tribalism would be the guys the Warriors would recruit from if they were real. I'd set Odysseus and/or Heracles up as podcast or pirate radio show. Two guys unironically quoting Fight Club and Homer (the Greek one, not the Simpson) every episode. Maybe even create a contact like the radio on red side for this where you're breaking up recruiting drives, use a rave/club map for the final mission of the intro arc where you fight the producer of the show while he's DJing or ranting at their underground rally. Just a few missions that establish that this gang is for the disassociated seeking to reclaim their sense of self with violence or a peer group focused on self-realization. They could be anti-supes by simply saying they've earned their might, and didn't have it gifted to them by random chance, genetics, money or a suit of armor. Honestly just imagining the radio shows Odysseus and Heracles could do on that single point would be fun.

 

While the Trolls are a bunch of drug addicts believing in violence for its own sake and the Outcasts are mutants seeking a sense of belonging the Warriors counterbalance by being natural based with some magic artifacts sprinkled judiciously to the higher ups. This gives you a great conflict point with every group, honestly and a chance to build and bill them as the villain group closest to not being villainous. They fight with the Circle and Tsoo to get supplies by beating up a bunch of Harry Potter/80s Ninja Movie LARPers, they directly compete against the weirdo psuedo fascist types of the Council and 5th for disassociated young men and women to recruit as well as funding, Im sure. You could see them start to show up in the red areas of steel and skyway to disrupt Trolls and Outcasts as a point of pride, they're in a very unique spot in terms of CoH in terms of their own morality and ethical considerations which would make them fun to write for. A re-tooling of Spanky's boardwalk to include a small carnival that serves as an ad-hoc powerbase for them would certainly give them flair and make Talos feel a bit more alive as someone earlier suggested.

 

Also, their logo sucks

 

 

This is just awful design. Word-Art has better stuff. I'd love to see what an artistically talented and excited CoH fan could do to make something better to throw on their backs, because this thing is just the absolute worst logo in the game. 

 

 

[Captain Fabulous]

Sorry if this has been suggested before, but can we make the Warriors come out and play-e-ay?

[Herotu]

On 6/19/2024 at 10:01 PM, lemetaron said:

Also, their logo sucks

 

 

This is just awful design. Word-Art has better stuff. I'd love to see what an artistically talented and excited CoH fan could do to make something better to throw on their backs, because this thing is just the absolute worst logo in the game. 

 

 

Lets remember how much famous real-world organisations have spent on their corporate emblems. It's clearly an extremely important part of their brand.

 

I want AI to design a logo for them. Go community! 

 

This is from Leonardo... https://app.leonardo.ai/image-generation

Edited June 21 by Herotu

[Paradox Fate]

Figure they would have slipped off the slope a bit and took the quick way for gaining power in order to be a match for the Incarnates, thus partially losing themselves to the will of the Well.

Which could be indicated by LT's/Boss/ED's wearing pieces of golden armor and perhaps having a battle aura effect in their eyes (The Battle Fury aura looks pretty good in gold).

[Herotu]

It enhanced my prompt for me!
 

[Ridiculous Girl]

i have not read through this whole thread, but i am assuming that this is in part because of the involvement of the warriors in the payphone mission? or am i misrememembering? 😁 so i am guessing some higher level warriors would be in the making...

 

it is worth mentioning that shield defense has a thing called phalanx fighting, which is very much associated with the greeks.

 

so, i had an idea... (this is where you say "uh oh...") 😁

 

looking in on the cimeroran traitors builds, they have phalanx fighting and the pilium, which is a ranged spear. rather than have the pilium, the Warriors could have a spear wall, ie. group (2+ or higher) PBAOE/melee, quills-like but high DoT formation.  boss level tank-like mob would have phalanx fighting and grant cover, LT level scrapper-like with phalanx fighting and grant cover-lite, with minion level hoplites with a phalanx fighting-lite and melee spear. so the whole group would the strongest while closely packed around a boss+ level mob. they would probably need a fire resistance and maybe add a fear +res and higher than normal AOE +def elements to the phalanx fighting, to counter fear inducing rain of fire type of attacks and long range AOEs. if things got desperately bad for the group as a whole they could do a special move called lock shields which would be similar to the council ascendant's shield power. maybe not completely invulnerable, but high enough +res/+def for a short period of time that they could regenerate as a group and then move back to a normal phalanx (ie. gaggle group) formation. ranged mobs would need to be mixed in, in the back of the group, of course

 

hell! why not a group level shield charge while you are at it! a boss+ level power, PBAOE melee alpha stike attack with group TP, with damage based on number in group! 😄 

 

it's not complete, but i was just brainstorming for a few... 😄

[AmbiguousOmen]

Combat-wise, the main issue with the Warriors is that they're fairly boring. Their missions are the easiest ones you can pick when doing paper missions in places like Nerva.

They're a bunch of melee units, with only single-target moves and a crossbow shot as a single ranged attack in most cases. They deal exclusively crushing/lethal and their only control abilities are the disorients from the Crushers, and some knockback/knockdown.

Thematically, they also write themselves into a corner by being a Natural-origin group that refuses to even use basic tech like guns.

 

Suggestions, in no particular order:

• Add a dedicated Archer subset of units, to at least mix in some ranged combatants. Or a Javelin user.
• Add some Super Strength moves (Foot Stomp, Hand Clap) to Lieutenants/Bosses to pepper in some AoE and control. These powers are "natural" enough to feature in the MM Thugs Bruiser.
• Add a support unit. For example, a Dog Trainer that's a Beasts/Pain MM (with only wolves to stand in as dogs and very few pain powers: World of Pain cast on player detection, Anguishing Cry when in melee). Keeping tough, scary dogs would be fairly on-brand for the Warriors.

[Sakura Tenshi]

I've posted this before in another thread, but I think I'll share my own idea for a Warrior Revamp that, admittedly, can't happen since it'd require new powersets and animations. But, here's the skinny of it:

 

1. Warrior Minions would remain largely the same looking, wearing the vests, pants, and the only archaic things on their person being their melee weapon choice (which would be skinned to look more like a Greek version of such weaponry) and a set of bracers/vambraces. You'd still have slashers (swordsmen), hewers (axemen), and crushers (mace users), but now we'd also see lancers (spearmen) mixed in, despite their archaic appearance, they'll still pull out a standard submachine guns (Slashers and Lancers) or Shotgun (Crushers and Hewers) for fighting at a ranged
2. At the Lieutenant ranks, you'd see Lancers and Slashers start to pick up a shield to pair with their weapons while hewers and crushers begin wielding their weapons with two-hands. Lancers and Slashers would likewise start to wear Corinthan style helmets (no crest plumes) and Crushers and Hewers a wear bull-styled helm and all of them would start to wear greaves over their boots. At this point, the warriors ditch their modern arms and begin to use Javelins (Well, Pilum really) for their ranged attacks
3. At the boss levels, Lancers and slashers would be going bare-chested and wearing bright red, over-the-shoulder capes much like Spartans in Frank Miller's 300 or like the Immunes Surgeons and Engineers in Cimerora, Hewers and Crushers meanwhile would don a Muscle Curaiss, and an armored skirt. All that remains of their street gang appearance is the pants (worn underneath the skirt for the latter pair) and boots underneath the greaves. Lancers and Slashers would now buff allies with Grant Cover defense buff and heal them with a boost of morale by giving a rallying shout (+HoT, basically a reskinned Temporal Mending) while the fierce nature of the Crushers and Hewers buff fellow warriors with a +damage Assault aura and they can unleash a beast-like bellow as a cone AoE -res debuff.
4. A new 'sniper' class of Warrior joins wielding twin daggers with lightning fast movements: Crypteia. With boosted perception to alert allies, stealthy movement, and the ability to close distance (ST 'teleport' attack like savage leap) rapidly and eliminate opponents, the Crypteia are reviled for their lack of honor but respected for dealing with foes and keeping other Warriors in line. (I figure they would use Redcap attack animations, just change the dagger models of the powers)
5. A new Underling class of enemy shows the true evil within the Warrior gang: The Helots. Helots are people enslaved by the warriors (thus likely using even Civilian skins) through use of magical bindings and drugs which force them to work against their own will. They will attack heroes and villains with whatever they can muster, but their true use to the Warriors is that these underlings can be targeted for a magical sacrifice to massively bolster actual fighters of the Gang or deal tremendous damage to nearby heroes.
6. Around level 30, all Warrior ranks would also benefit from elemental magical artifacts which would grant their attacks bonus fire, cold, or energy (lightning) damage, though such arcane empowerments would always be available for bosses regardless of level range. This magical empowerment also results in the ranged attack type changing from physical arms to magical flares of fire, ice daggers, or lightning bolts.
7. Alternative possibility for elements would be keep Lightning (association with Zeus) and change fire and ice to Water (Poseidon) and Negative (Hades/Thanatos). Also another possibility could be to move the HoT and Cone -Res down to Lt. ranks. I'm wearing of giving Lts though group buffs due to the numbers they spawn in which could stack quickly and become frustrating.

edit: everyone's entitled to their opinions but i do wonder why the  thumbsdown specifically?

Edited July 15 by Sakura Tenshi