Are alternate powers within powersets possible?

[Snarky]

A giant.  Huge.  Enormous.  HUMUNGOUS pet peeve of mine is the sets that I have an interest in playing the most (Dark, Energy for Blasters as examples) do not fit my playstyle.  

 

When I want to run a Blaster I want to run a ranged Blaster.  Period.  It is not up for discussion.  I know what I like, why I want to run it, the concept, and how I want to play.  Much like I will not run an MM until I can have ALL zombie pet army (even if that is not 'the best') I will not enjoy a Blaster that is not ranged.  I love Energy Blast.  I could (and have) written fiction about Dark magic characters.  I have a boatload of concepts for them.  But, playstyle, I seriously resent being pulled into melee range.   Hmm...enough backstory, to the topic at hand...

 

So, Is it possible for the Dev team to consider making certain powers with options....you either get a PBAoE version of the power or a Ranged version?

 

Or, Is it possible to make a fully ranged set from an original?  Take Radiation Blast and modify it as a different set entirely Radiation Blast2 or Radiation Blast Ranged, and turn the two PBAoEs in that set to ranged AoE.  

 

A character could only choose the set at creation, as a possibility.  Only one permanent choice.  Or, if it is VERY flexible, Alternate builds could have one or the other, even though different from a first build.

 

In general discussion rather than suggestions because it is more exploratory that requesty....

 

 

Edited March 15, 2021 by Snarky

[TemporalVileTerror]

Possible?  Yes.

@Captain Powerhouse approved?   Nope.   At least last I heard.

[gamingglen]

I don't get this.  You can blast them in the face when they are next to you.  I play blasters a lot.  Rarely do I use a melee power, unless I take the Martial Combat secondary set.  I have used melee powers from other secondary sets once in awhile, but it's even rarer I add a second slot to any of them. 

[SuperPlyx]

Removing the PBAoE nuke to make it a range attack.....is.....I don't know....shouldn't so powerful an attack have some risk involved ? 

[gamingglen]

22 minutes ago, SuperPlyx said:

Removing the PBAoE nuke to make it a range attack.....is.....I don't know....shouldn't so powerful an attack have some risk involved ? 

 

Oh, that power.  Meh, it's fun to use but don't very often unless on purpose.  You have snipe for that ranged massive attack (except for those powersets without snipe.. grrr).

[MTeague]

Minimally, if you gave alternate power selections so you could have *everything* at signifcant range, no cones, not PBAE's, just all range and targetted AE's, I would expect those alternate powers to be either single target or scaled down quite a bit in damage. You may not like Fire Sword Circle, but if there was a ranged alternative (Fire Knife Barrage?), it would be unfair for it to hit just as many targets, just as hard, with no risk to you, etc.

[Shred Monkey]

You know... EVERY powerset has an animation option to turn all their powers "dark."   So if you want to play a dark concept, but don't like the powerset that's base animations fit best, just go with a blast set that you do like and color it dark.

 

For example I have a toon named Flaming Doom Monkey.  Guess how many fire powers he has.   One.... I took the fire based judgment.   His costume has a flaming aura, a flaming trail aura, and flaming eyes.  His attacks all have a gold/yellow flash to their animation.   But his his powersets are Shield/Martial Arts.  It's a very fun toon to play, and one of my all-time favorite name/costume combos... no actual fire damage needed.

[Techwright]

Add enough knockback and those energy melee powers do offer range, "knock ya into next Tuesday" range.

[Max Firepower]

As the VEAT AT uses a ‘tree’ system, this is an unrealized opportunity for many sets, especially some of the older ones, imho.

The incarnate power tree is nominally similar.

 

For example... Those ‘buff others only’ powers?

What if you could choose 

 

- Standard Insulation Field, buff others only

or

- PBAoE Imsulation field, say 70% effective, but affects caster, and can’t be used beyond the sphere?

 

I think there are many sets who would benefit from choices of A or B (Build up bs Follow up for the Night Widow choices).

[Snarky]

2 hours ago, SuperPlyx said:

Removing the PBAoE nuke to make it a range attack.....is.....I don't know....shouldn't so powerful an attack have some risk involved ? 

okay.....this is what drives me crazy.  1st) you are wrong.  That just irritates me.  because 2nd) some sets have the Tier 9 ranged AoE and it is literally just as powerful (arguably) as the PBAoE tier 9s.  To me it just looks like random choice by Devs at the start and it happens my favorite power types got PBAoE instead of Ranged.  This is the stuff I lay awake at night plotting my next villainous misdeed over....

 

Compare Electrical Blast Tier 9...Ranged, vs Energy Blast Tier 9 PBAoE vs Dark Blast Tier 9.  THe same Damage and Radius.  SAME.  Difference....Devs originally coded one as PB and the other Ranged.  ONLY STINKING DIFFERENCE

Edited March 16, 2021 by Snarky

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, Shred Monkey said:

You know... EVERY powerset has an animation option to turn all their powers "dark."   So if you want to play a dark concept, but don't like the powerset that's base animations fit best, just go with a blast set that you do like and color it dark.

 

For example I have a toon named Flaming Doom Monkey.  Guess how many fire powers he has.   One.... I took the fire based judgment.   His costume has a flaming aura, a flaming trail aura, and flaming eyes.  His attacks all have a gold/yellow flash to their animation.   But his his powersets are Shield/Martial Arts.  It's a very fun toon to play, and one of my all-time favorite name/costume combos... no actual fire damage needed.

I tried this with electric.  It did not feel "dark" because I knew I was missing the dark secondary effects.  I know when I am pulling power from the negative material plane to torture the souls of my enemies.  After that, everything else is just....meh.

[roleki]

Combat Teleport/Jaunt is perfect for characters that want to stay at range, but have a PBAoE nuke.  Boom boom boom *poof* BOOM *poof* boom boom boom.

[DougGraves]

I really want alternate powers. 

 

I  don't like pets.  I would love to play a controller who could take an attack in place of their pets.

 

Defenders could have alternate powers for the only affect allies powers.  Give them a power they can use when soloing.

[ForeverLaxx]

13 hours ago, Snarky said:

It did not feel "dark" because I knew I was missing the dark secondary effects

Sounds like a personal hangup to me. I don't like how Stone Armor is designed, so I used Dark Armor instead and colored the particles to look like sand floating around. I don't care that the set itself is designed to be good against Dark and Psy damage and not Smash/Lethal (with a side of Psy) like Stone because it's the power animations and colors that fill the concept. Requiring that your "dark magic" must also debuff ToHit is a very stringent requirement, even for me, someone who only builds concept characters. You're just restricting yourself unnecessarily to the point of stubbornness.

[srmalloy]

14 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

You know... EVERY powerset has an animation option to turn all their powers "dark."   So if you want to play a dark concept, but don't like the powerset that's base animations fit best, just go with a blast set that you do like and color it dark.

I did this with a Dark/Plant Blaster, recoloring all of the Dark powers to suggest that they were plant-based, with the debuffs rationalized as biological effects. Except for device-based sets like Assault Rifle and Dual Pistols, you're free to fiddle with the visuals to match the powers to your concept for the character.

[arcane]

17 hours ago, Snarky said:

Or, Is it possible to make a fully ranged set from an original?  Take Radiation Blast and modify it as a different set entirely Radiation Blast2 or Radiation Blast Ranged, and turn the two PBAoEs in that set to ranged AoE.  

I hate the thought of them designing the game in such a messy, clunky way like this. Am just totally against such inelegant design. This game doesn’t need to be like Garry’s Mod.

[Omega-202]

14 hours ago, Snarky said:

okay.....this is what drives me crazy.  1st) you are wrong.  That just irritates me.  because 2nd) some sets have the Tier 9 ranged AoE and it is literally just as powerful (arguably) as the PBAoE tier 9s.  To me it just looks like random choice by Devs at the start and it happens my favorite power types got PBAoE instead of Ranged.  This is the stuff I lay awake at night plotting my next villainous misdeed over....

 

Compare Electrical Blast Tier 9...Ranged, vs Energy Blast Tier 9 PBAoE vs Dark Blast Tier 9.  THe same Damage and Radius.  SAME.  Difference....Devs originally coded one as PB and the other Ranged.  ONLY STINKING DIFFERENCE

 

Wow, if you're going to be a giant jerk, at least be correct.  Electric blast's nuke has a higher base recharge than the PbAoE nukes (170s vs 145s). 

 

They specifically balanced the ranged nuke's higher safety with a longer recharge, completely intentionally.  

 

Grow up and apologize.  

[Faultline]

It is certainly possible and there is at least one example in the game, Practiced Brawler vs. Master Brawler on Sentinels. I believe there was pushback on the idea because if you start doing that for a lot of powers it becomes a balance nightmare and looks clunky, so it wasn't even ported to other versions of Super Reflexes.

[Carnifax]

3 hours ago, srmalloy said:

I did this with a Dark/Plant Blaster, recoloring all of the Dark powers to suggest that they were plant-based, with the debuffs rationalized as biological effects. Except for device-based sets like Assault Rifle and Dual Pistols, you're free to fiddle with the visuals to match the powers to your concept for the character.

Yup, totally. Hence my Water / Temporal "Time" blaster.  

 

Bonus : My Primary doesn't make weEEEEeeeeOOOOO noises. 

[Carnifax]

2 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

 

Wow, if you're going to be a giant jerk, at least be correct.  Electric blast's nuke has a higher base recharge than the PbAoE nukes (170s vs 145s). 

 

They specifically balanced the ranged nuke's higher safety with a longer recharge, completely intentionally.  

 

Grow up and apologize.  

 

^ This. Beam does have the 145 recharge, but to balance that the base damage is lower. 

 

Rain of Arrows really seems to be the only outlier (according to Mids anyway). 

[dopeninja]

Blasters were designed to be ranged, yet if something does manage to get close you can hit it a few times with melee attacks. There are exceptions of course. I have a rad/fire blaster that lives in melee. All the PbAOE just melts groups of mobs.

 

Having that level of customization isn't really what this game is about. It's about working around the flaws in each class / power combo. If you want to run fully ranged, nothing is stopping you. Don't take the melee powers from your secondary and fill those in with pool choices.

 

Maybe a blaster isn't the best choice for that character, look into a Corruptor to see if it would be a better fit. 

[siolfir]

As @Faultline and @Max Firepower have brought up some of the examples I was going to use that are already in-game which use mutually exclusive powers (which @Captain Powerhouse has stated in the past he does not like), I'll just point out that the snipes, Assassin's Strikes, and Titan Weapons use a form of this by redirecting to other powers as well.

 

One thing that hurts the case is that the seemingly preferred way (conditional power redirects) uses one set of slots for any powers, and you would have IO slotting issues no matter how you tried redirecting there as some sets wouldn't apply when one is PBAoE and the other is TAoE. As for balance of ranged vs PBAoE nukes and their respective damage and/or recharges, it's all made up and arbitrary at that point since they aren't following the design formulas which don't differentiate between a melee or ranged attack, and arbitrary rules can be changed arbitrarily.

[jojogladco]

 

3 hours ago, Faultline said:

It is certainly possible and there is at least one example in the game, Practiced Brawler vs. Master Brawler on Sentinels. I believe there was pushback on the idea because if you start doing that for a lot of powers it becomes a balance nightmare and looks clunky, so it wasn't even ported to other versions of Super Reflexes.

Unless CPH has changed his tune I wouldn't expect more powers similar to Master/Practiced Brawler.  

[jojogladco]

34 minutes ago, Carnifax said:

 

^ This. Beam does have the 145 recharge, but to balance that the base damage is lower. 

 

Rain of Arrows really seems to be the only outlier (according to Mids anyway). 

With RoA there's an expectation that some/many of the mobs will have moved from the damage area before the damage is applied and that reduces the effectiveness of the power which offsets some of it's benefits. 

[DougGraves]

3 hours ago, Faultline said:

I believe there was pushback on the idea because if you start doing that for a lot of powers it becomes a balance nightmare and looks clunky, so it wasn't even ported to other versions of Super Reflexes.

 

I don't think there should be individual power choices.  I think there should be themed choices like in SoA Crab vs the weaker SoA.

 

I would like to see Defender primaries having two sets - team and solo.  You cannot mix and match.  So you are just balancing the sets.  But it would allow a defender to have a teaming build and a solo build.  You could make a FF defender and be able to solo.