Barrier Control: Force Fields for Controllers and Dominators

[Replacement]

Ok.

 

The Feels:

I like it.  I enjoy your attempts to avoid overlap with Force Fields, and the novel mechanic to build on top of it all.

 

The Mechanicals:

While some of the hows of implementation would likely change, I feel like I can point to other powers that prove more or less all of this is doable.  But that's as it is understood by me, a fallible human bean with 1.5th hand experience.

 

The one thing I would wonder about is the "forced attack."  I know there are some things that do this already that don't seem to use Taunt -- either they actually do and I didn't notice, or they use some other mechanic that is foreign to me.

 

Some specifics...

Energy Barrier - This is essentially a Hold that can be overcome with DPS.  Not only would I avoid it canceling toggles just out of concern for being Hold power level, it's also out of scope for implementation (requires a new Suppress/Cancel event in every toggle - that's every enemy toggle and every player toggle for PvP!).

 

Kinetic Barrier - This is essentially a Contain/Phase effect over the area.  Not the end of the world, but that's basically how this would work out: instead of a pseudopet summoning a phase region, the way Dimension Shift (Gravity) works, it would summon an ACTUAL pet that can be targeted and beat up so it stops pulsing the phase effect (and looking specifically at the Kinetic Barrier power, I think an outer radius of regular Repel would work).

 

The Balance:

First off, my biggest concern is AVs and other crazy-hard targets.  These shields would ignore mez protection, yet (ostensibly) force them to waste attacks on them instead of on players, which is incredibly strong.  Imagine stacking 2-3 Barrier characters to always render their attacks useless.  If these are targeted via Taunt -- my understanding is Taunt is never blocked; just duration-reduced.  And you really wouldn't want to start the precedent of AVs having Taunt protection, lol.

 

Also, if Taunt is the only way, that does mean AoE attacks will "leak" through.  That's off-theme, but on-balance.

AVs aside, it's still very hard to see the Energy Barriers as anything other than mez-bypassing Holds.  For context on how good this would be at soaking damage: energy fonts only lose 30 HP at level 50 relative to other pets.  For context, this is 1040 HP at level 50, vs a Fire Imp's 1070, popping out all the time.  That's enough for an AV/GM to continually 1-2 shot it, but most regular bosses will never ever break it before you've had a chance to reapply.

 

Tuning suggestions version 1: A big HP reduction to the shields themselves.

- Lower the max HP of the Energy Barriers to something like 600 at level 50 (this should be enough that heavy-hitting melee bosses and LTs need to burn all their attacks to break it).

- I would go even further, dropping it to ~450 but allowing these powers to take +Healing enhancements.  This not only makes slotting interesting and diverse; it helps cut into the power budget by forcing you to choose between better standard Control stats and thicc shields.

- Remove the +Max HP from Barrier Empowerment.  It's redundant with the +absorb anyway.  Instead, could consider making it so shield refreshes also provide a stacking Max HP buff.

 

- Detain should change to "chance for Energy Barrier" per tick.  Even something like a 10% chance every 2 seconds would add up fast and keep it occasionally locking targets who are overcoming the Hold.  On that note, it would be pretty interesting if the Hold effect it applies is actually weak (mag 1-2) but set to Stack.  I could imagine it having a guaranteed Shield when you first cast, and then each standard 2-second tick would have a 10-20% chance to re-up the barrier, as well as apply a stacking mag 1.5, 10-15 second hold.  That would hold Bosses in 6 seconds (at which point they would have no way to really recover).

 

- Compression Field doesn't need to also have the impenetrable exclusion bubble.  The theme doesn't demand all of them be air-tight, and this is an example of an effect that fits the fiction while still being strong without it.  Targeting the barrier just to break free is incentive enough (should be possible to give it an inherent very high threat multiplier so its naturally more likely to be attacked).

 

-Barrier Implosion - I think I would implement as a very large pbaoe minor damage + knock effect that also enables a mode on any barriers in the area to unlock a new power (technically 2 linked powers): their own boom+Knock, and a self-destruct.  This should hit the effect you're after, but also keep it "waste" proof like Tex was saying.

It may have an odd effect that I would actually call a feature: the barrier collapses would likely be slightly staggered, booming in staccato instead of synchronized.

 

To be continued with some other approaches.

[Blackfeather]

Oh wow! Thank you for the in depth response, Replacement - glad you're a fan of the feel of it, which was definitely something I was attempting to keep in mind. You do have a stronger grasp at the specifics of the game, and it's reflected here. I'll try and address each part in chunks as best I can, along with trying to clarify things and the like.

 

Mechanics

 

2 hours ago, Replacement said:

While some of the hows of implementation would likely change, I feel like I can point to other powers that prove more or less all of this is doable.  But that's as it is understood by me, a fallible human bean with 1.5th hand experience.

 

The one thing I would wonder about is the "forced attack."  I know there are some things that do this already that don't seem to use Taunt -- either they actually do and I didn't notice, or they use some other mechanic that is foreign to me.

 

I was definitely rather vague with how Barrier Control might work specifically, because I myself am not quite certain of how its summoned barriers around enemies might function. One thing that potentially came to mind could be a debuff to an enemy's range, that keeps their attacks to within energy barrier striking distance.

 

Alternately, I do recall -Perception affecting players and enemies differently, causing the former to only be able to target things close by to them, and wonder if it's feasible to do the same for foes as well, potentially as another effect. I'm tempted to ping a powers dev and ask them about that sort of thing, maybe at another time.

 

2 hours ago, Replacement said:

Some specifics...

Energy Barrier - This is essentially a Hold that can be overcome with DPS.  Not only would I avoid it canceling toggles just out of concern for being Hold power level, it's also out of scope for implementation (requires a new Suppress/Cancel event in every toggle - that's every enemy toggle and every player toggle for PvP!).

 

Kinetic Barrier - This is essentially a Contain/Phase effect over the area.  Not the end of the world, but that's basically how this would work out: instead of a pseudopet summoning a phase region, the way Dimension Shift (Gravity) works, it would summon an ACTUAL pet that can be targeted and beat up so it stops pulsing the phase effect (and looking specifically at the Kinetic Barrier power, I think an outer radius of regular Repel would work).

 

Hmm, that's fair, I think! The intent there was to provide Barrier Control with some equivalent ways of dealing with toggles and the like, but  T3: Detain can probably handle that easily enough, especially due to its own unique properties. It's not something that's essential to the feel of the powerset either, so I agree, it can be gotten rid of quite easily.

 

Ideally, I'd want some kind of way to just kind of break enemy and player line of sight while using T5: Kinetic Barrier, that is, restricting what one can target depending on what side of the field they're both on. Dimension Shift's a fine power, but it can be quite irritating to end up accidentally targeting something that isn't on the same side of the field, and I don't want enemies wasting their attacks on things that don't hit their mark either.

 

Balance

 

Another big thanks for looking at balance; I absolutely highballed Barrier Control, and figured that I could always scale it down easily enough - since most of its ability to control the battlefield is based around immobile summons, it'd probably be easy enough to just dial down their health accordingly.

 

3 hours ago, Replacement said:

First off, my biggest concern is AVs and other crazy-hard targets.  These shields would ignore mez protection, yet (ostensibly) force them to waste attacks on them instead of on players, which is incredibly strong.  Imagine stacking 2-3 Barrier characters to always render their attacks useless.  If these are targeted via Taunt -- my understanding is Taunt is never blocked; just duration-reduced.  And you really wouldn't want to start the precedent of AVs having Taunt protection, lol.

 

Also, if Taunt is the only way, that does mean AoE attacks will "leak" through.  That's off-theme, but on-balance.

 

AVs aside, it's still very hard to see the Energy Barriers as anything other than mez-bypassing Holds.  For context on how good this would be at soaking damage: energy fonts only lose 30 HP at level 50 relative to other pets.  For context, this is 1040 HP at level 50, vs a Fire Imp's 1070, popping out all the time.  That's enough for an AV/GM to continually 1-2 shot it, but most regular bosses will never ever break it before you've had a chance to reapply.

 

I absolutely envisioned Energy Barriers as functioning more as "forcing enemies to target them" as opposed to "keep enemies from affecting other things" in terms of balance. That being said, the latter would be quite interesting, depending on how much health they end up having; probably less to compensate.

 

One implementation that I think would be super neat would be to let damage somehow "overflow" to other things if I go the latter route - an enemy explosion is contained by the shield, but the additional damage could spread out if it breaks the barrier in the process, harming others nearby accordingly.

 

Keep in mind that of the three kinds of summons, only Energy Barriers and Kinetic Barriers have properties that can potentially stop enemies from attacking allies - Compression Fields mostly have health because the intent was to carry the theme along of having destructible shields, hence why the table on it doesn't have anything involving forcing enemies to target it. I could easily see making it a regular toggle that drops off after some time, similar to Sorcery's Enflame, and nothing would really be lost.

 

I decided on Energy Fonts because they were the most fragile pets I was aware of - hearing that amount, it certainly sounds like that's not quite enough; I wanted Energy Barriers to be relatively numerous and fragile.

 

3 hours ago, Replacement said:

Tuning suggestions version 1: A big HP reduction to the shields themselves.

- Lower the max HP of the Energy Barriers to something like 600 at level 50 (this should be enough that heavy-hitting melee bosses and LTs need to burn all their attacks to break it).

- I would go even further, dropping it to ~450 but allowing these powers to take +Healing enhancements.  This not only makes slotting interesting and diverse; it helps cut into the power budget by forcing you to choose between better standard Control stats and thicc shields.

- Remove the +Max HP from Barrier Empowerment.  It's redundant with the +absorb anyway.  Instead, could consider making it so shield refreshes also provide a stacking Max HP buff.

 

HP reduction's easy enough - like I said, I overtuned things on purpose since I figured scaling things down would be pretty simple. Funnily enough, I actually considered allowing the set to slot in Healing enhancements, but figured that'd be a little redundant with  T7: Barrier Empowerment providing that for players! I can definitely see that working well though, and it could certainly provide  T5: Kinetic Barrier with some other forms of slotting in the process.

 

I did want buffs to transfer over to Energy Barriers whenever they replaced a new one, so I think that covers the whole +Max HP thing, but I'll certainly think over it!

 

3 hours ago, Replacement said:

- Detain should change to "chance for Energy Barrier" per tick.  Even something like a 10% chance every 2 seconds would add up fast and keep it occasionally locking targets who are overcoming the Hold.  On that note, it would be pretty interesting if the Hold effect it applies is actually weak (mag 1-2) but set to Stack.  I could imagine it having a guaranteed Shield when you first cast, and then each standard 2-second tick would have a 10-20% chance to re-up the barrier, as well as apply a stacking mag 1.5, 10-15 second hold.  That would hold Bosses in 6 seconds (at which point they would have no way to really recover).

 

Honestly mulling over it, I don't think  T3: Detain really needs to summon an Energy Barrier at all! Being an auto-hit Hold in the vein of Telekinesis, along with it being a 6.5 Mag Hold is more than potent enough when balanced out by its single target nature. It should keep one enemy out of commission, and makes it less finicky to deal with (e.g. bring the power up, have it deactivated due to its Energy Barrier being destroyed, bring it up again after a few seconds).

 

That way, it also encourages players to take T2: Razor Bubble and  T4: Suppression Zone for easier access to Energy Barrier summons.

 

3 hours ago, Replacement said:

- Compression Field doesn't need to also have the impenetrable exclusion bubble.  The theme doesn't demand all of them be air-tight, and this is an example of an effect that fits the fiction while still being strong without it.  Targeting the barrier just to break free is incentive enough (should be possible to give it an inherent very high threat multiplier so its naturally more likely to be attacked).

 

This was kind of addressed before, but the intent behind adding health to  T8: Compression Field was not to force enemies to attack it, but just to make it temporary and destructible, to limit how long it potentially can be up. Indeed, I've already got another power in the set that has a passive, weak kind of effect in T4: Suppression Zone, and this is carrying out a similar trend.

 

If anything, I'd want the field to have as low a priority as possible to keep it up for longer, while also taking some attacks on the side. Alternately, I could easily just make it a toggle that lasted a set amount of time, but I'd much prefer to keep it being a summon.

 

3 hours ago, Replacement said:

-Barrier Implosion - I think I would implement as a very large pbaoe minor damage + knock effect that also enables a mode on any barriers in the area to unlock a new power (technically 2 linked powers): their own boom+Knock, and a self-destruct.  This should hit the effect you're after, but also keep it "waste" proof like Tex was saying.

It may have an odd effect that I would actually call a feature: the barrier collapses would likely be slightly staggered, booming in staccato instead of synchronized.

 

Oooooh. I was actually a little unsure as to how  T9: Barrier Implosion might work behind the scenes, and I like what you're suggesting! I might take away the no effect clause in that case, and alter the description a little accordingly - something like sending a wave of energy outwards that deals minor damage to enemies before knocking them down, empowering shields around you in the process.

 

...so when they absorb said energy, they become unstable, and then collapse down to damage enemies that they're currently entrapping. It's very neat, and on theme.

 

Thanks for the detailed post, and looking forward to further suggestions! I'm going to alter my post a little accordingly - have Energy Barriers at about half the health of an Energy Font since they'll be quite numerous, and get rid of the Energy Barrier summon in T3: Detain. I'll alter some things about  T9: Barrier Implosion as well.

[Blackfeather]

Oh! And in addition to that, getting rid of the "deactivate/suppress toggles" clause from those Energy Barriers in the process. As mentioned before, T3: Detain should be more than enough to handle them, especially since I imagine its Hold component as automatically hitting things, similar to Telekinesis.

[Replacement]

1 hour ago, Blackfeather said:

Honestly mulling over it, I don't think  T3: Detain really needs to summon an Energy Barrier at all! Being an auto-hit Hold in the vein of Telekinesis, along with it being a 6.5 Mag Hold is more than potent enough when balanced out by its single target nature.

You're right that it doesn't need the shield at all.  Also my suggested version is too powerful.  But also also: I don't think mag 6.5 is going to fly anywhere but Cake.  I understand why you're doing it that way, but I think a stacking variant is still going to be the way to go (and with shorter durations than I suggested earlier to boot).

Essentially, a mix of a moderate "on activate" hold and a small recurring hold tick + percentage of additional mag.  Something like that could be tuned to guarantee a boss hold in a couple seconds, but allow them a chance to recover briefly every 4 or 6 seconds.  It also needs a jumbo endurance cost, since it won't be slotting for acc.

 

Thanks also for the clarification on the Crush.  I missed that it didn't require them to attack it.

 

One thing that concerns me about the shields being weak is the actual usability of the t9.  It may become more or less impossible to get more than 1-2 different booms, unless you intentionally dump all your cooldowns at the same time.  I also have a couple of implementation concerns for Kinetic Barrier when I think about how it would interact with Barrier Implosion.  That t9 is a darling that may need killed.

 

Tuning suggestions version 2:  C-c-combos?

 

If you wanted the shields to be much stronger and more persistent and didn't just want everything to have terrible small % chances to generate them, a combo system like Water Blast or even Dual Blades (careful on that road though) could work.  E.g. All the powers you have listed currently as creating an energy barrier all instead build up stacks to become energy barriers.  To make it a little more interesting, I'd have it build on enemies instead of building up points on you.

 

I realize this is unlikely except in the event of a near-total rewrite, but wanted to throw out the possibility as a novel way to play it more like a regular Controller while spiking an additional dimension of control on demand.

 

[Blackfeather]

4 hours ago, Replacement said:

You're right that it doesn't need the shield at all.  Also my suggested version is too powerful.  But also also: I don't think mag 6.5 is going to fly anywhere but Cake.  I understand why you're doing it that way, but I think a stacking variant is still going to be the way to go (and with shorter durations than I suggested earlier to boot).

Essentially, a mix of a moderate "on activate" hold and a small recurring hold tick + percentage of additional mag.  Something like that could be tuned to guarantee a boss hold in a couple seconds, but allow them a chance to recover briefly every 4 or 6 seconds.  It also needs a jumbo endurance cost, since it won't be slotting for acc.

 

Thanks also for the clarification on the Crush.  I missed that it didn't require them to attack it.

 

Something like a single target Choking Cloud, by the sounds of things? That could certainly work as a way of reducing its potency somewhat. That being said, I do personally think that  T3: Detain is in a good spot at the moment. That it can only affect one target at a time is quite substantial of a drawback given the game's crowd-heavy nature, in my opinion. I could maybe see it being ticked down to a Mag 3.5? But the intent was definitely to be able to lock down a single, relatively strong target at the cost of not being able to do anything else with the power.

 

And yeah!  T8: Compression Field is mostly just a way of adding some extra damage to the set, along with making use of that vectored knockback tech a little in a way that'd fit with the powerset's theme. Its destructible nature's meant to build on the general idea of force field users in fiction sometimes losing focus or having to recuperate after too much strain is put on their shields - it's why there's several toggles in the set in the first place.

 

7 hours ago, Replacement said:

One thing that concerns me about the shields being weak is the actual usability of the t9.  It may become more or less impossible to get more than 1-2 different booms, unless you intentionally dump all your cooldowns at the same time.  I also have a couple of implementation concerns for Kinetic Barrier when I think about how it would interact with Barrier Implosion.  That t9 is a darling that may need killed.

 

As mentioned, the intent of  T9: Barrier Implosion was to indeed provide some level of risk reward component, trading off some control for large amounts of damage. So if anything, this sounds more like a feature than a bug - if you want more damage, you can't just try and slowly stagger out your barriers to try and cheat the system, you'll want to do it fairly quickly.

 

Could you elaborate further on your implementation concerns? It's going to be an extremely hard sell for me to consider getting rid of it - it's an iconic way of using force fields destructively, and I personally think it's a great alternative to having a pet, something of a goal I also set out while designing the powerset.

 

8 hours ago, Replacement said:

Tuning suggestions version 2:  C-c-combos?

 

If you wanted the shields to be much stronger and more persistent and didn't just want everything to have terrible small % chances to generate them, a combo system like Water Blast or even Dual Blades (careful on that road though) could work.  E.g. All the powers you have listed currently as creating an energy barrier all instead build up stacks to become energy barriers.  To make it a little more interesting, I'd have it build on enemies instead of building up points on you.

 

I realize this is unlikely except in the event of a near-total rewrite, but wanted to throw out the possibility as a novel way to play it more like a regular Controller while spiking an additional dimension of control on demand.

 

🤔 ...you know. I designed an Insect Control powerset some time back that used small magnitudes and faster recharges to emulate the feel of 'small but fierce together'. I might just. Look back on that and give a brush up on it. A version 2 perhaps. Thematically speaking, having a proper builder-spender mechanic seems more in line with gathering swarms of insects than manipulating force fields.

 

I've settled on having Energy Barriers having the health of a Mastermind's minion henchman for the moment - that should hopefully be a nice balance between being solid enough to stop some attacks while not being too persistent to keep them constantly up. Especially if their health is also enhanceable (still a little on the fence about that, but more slotting options do make sense).

 

But I think @oedipus_tex is probably right as well: testing this in-game would definitely make things much easier to get the actual feel of it all, to see how long these barriers might last, and properly tune up or down their health. I'm sure there's a nice sweet spot, but it's something that's better done hands on, I think.

 

Thanks again for all this in depth feedback! I did write up Barrier Control to purposefully work differently than other 'normal' Control sets, so I'm fairly happy with how the powers themselves function outside of sanding off any extreme power spikes or improving underpowered aspects.

 

...now all I need is to figure out how to write a powerset file, manipulate graphical textures, and get a CoH server to run this on. 😅

[Blackfeather]

On 10/20/2021 at 10:16 AM, Replacement said:

If you wanted the shields to be much stronger and more persistent and didn't just want everything to have terrible small % chances to generate them, a combo system like Water Blast or even Dual Blades (careful on that road though) could work.  E.g. All the powers you have listed currently as creating an energy barrier all instead build up stacks to become energy barriers.  To make it a little more interesting, I'd have it build on enemies instead of building up points on you.

 

I realize this is unlikely except in the event of a near-total rewrite, but wanted to throw out the possibility as a novel way to play it more like a regular Controller while spiking an additional dimension of control on demand.

 

Control on demand...actually, that makes me think of another potential idea. What if instead of having a chance based likelihood of creating an Energy Barrier in T2: Razor Bubble occur all of the time, perhaps it could be altered to only be able to do so while the effects of  T7: Barrier Empowerment last, but also guarantee it occurring? Stronger lockdown, but impossible to keep up permanently.

[oedipus_tex]

On 10/17/2021 at 5:27 AM, Blackfeather said:

 

Alright, I imagine it shouldn't be too hard, hopefully at least. Out of curiosity, do you also have Gravity Control's powers file? I kind of want to see what they did for Singularity for the whole attract mechanism, or if there's a more general form of seeing the different kinds of things that the new attract tech can do.

 

 

Gravity Control's attraction mechanic uses server code that was custom-created for the Homecoming server, so unfortunately it is not something anyone other than an actual Homecoming developer would be able to supply. The POWER defs I've shared come from the publicly available Ourodev version of CoX, which uses Issue 24 code. 

 

You can access this info for any powerset in the game by creating an account on the Ourodev site and navigating the files here: https://git.ourodev.com/CoX/i2401-bin-server/-/tree/master/bin/serverdata/Defs/powers

 

 

To save you time I've attached the POWERs files for the Controller and Dominator versions of Gravity Control. Having worked on a few of these myself now, I recommend using the Dominator version first and then backending the Controller version, because its easier to backform a Controller set based on a Dominator one than the inverse (what I mean is if you don't start with the Dom version you can find yourself painted into a corner where you realize adding Domination won't be easy, where as converting to add Containment/Overpower is a very short process).

 

 

Keep in mind I'm not suggesting you have to create a full prototype on a test server and actually run it. The POWERS files may just be a convenient way for you to organize your thoughts and make sure the powerset looks structurally similar to existing sets.

 

 

Dominator_Control_Gravity_Control.powers Controller_Control_Gravity_Control.powers

Edited October 21, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[oedipus_tex]

By the way, I have one other thought.

 

Given the theme of this set, you might think about the secondary effect being +Absorb on self. There isn't a set currently in game with that effect, and it seems to fit the thematics nicely. Absorb would also be highly desirable for Dominators, since they have few sources of mitigation to work with. Absorb is also something you don't have to worry too much about being overpowered, because it has a duration and any extra HP values quickly fall off. I'd say a 10 second absorb or something similar might be in the right ballpark. The idea isn't turning you into a tank, just providing a bit of buffer. It would be especially useful in a bread and butter AoE control to absorb a portion of the damage from stuff that didn't get mezzed. Dominators in particular currently have to just eat that damage.

 

 

[Blackfeather]

15 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

Gravity Control's attraction mechanic uses server code that was custom-created for the Homecoming server, so unfortunately it is not something anyone other than an actual Homecoming developer would be able to supply. The POWER defs I've shared come from the publicly available Ourodev version of CoX, which uses Issue 24 code. 

 

You can access this info for any powerset in the game by creating an account on the Ourodev site and navigating the files here: https://git.ourodev.com/CoX/i2401-bin-server/-/tree/master/bin/serverdata/Defs/powers

 

 

To save you time I've attached the POWERs files for the Controller and Dominator versions of Gravity Control. Having worked on a few of these myself now, I recommend using the Dominator version first and then backending the Controller version, because its easier to backform a Controller set based on a Dominator one than the inverse (what I mean is if you don't start with the Dom version you can find yourself painted into a corner where you realize adding Domination won't be easy, where as converting to add Containment/Overpower is a very short process).

 

 

Keep in mind I'm not suggesting you have to create a full prototype on a test server and actually run it. The POWERS files may just be a convenient way for you to organize your thoughts and make sure the powerset looks structurally similar to existing sets.

 

Ah well, that's a bit of a shame, but there's not much that can be done in that case, I suppose! It doesn't stop me from potentially writing definitions for the other existing powers in the set either way. Thanks for those Gravity Control power files, I'm sure they'll prove to be helpful!

 

At the very least, it's a nice step towards potentially understanding how the game works behind the scenes a little bit - something quite interesting in of itself. A sort of extra step in imagining this concept in reality. Thanks again!

[Blackfeather]

23 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

By the way, I have one other thought.

 

Given the theme of this set, you might think about the secondary effect being +Absorb on self. There isn't a set currently in game with that effect, and it seems to fit the thematics nicely. Absorb would also be highly desirable for Dominators, since they have few sources of mitigation to work with. Absorb is also something you don't have to worry too much about being overpowered, because it has a duration and any extra HP values quickly fall off. I'd say a 10 second absorb or something similar might be in the right ballpark. The idea isn't turning you into a tank, just providing a bit of buffer. It would be especially useful in a bread and butter AoE control to absorb a portion of the damage from stuff that didn't get mezzed. Dominators in particular currently have to just eat that damage.

 

Hmmm...I've got some ideas on how to change Barrier Control a little to limit those barrier summons somewhat, I'll describe them soon enough, but I'll keep that in mind. I could see myself leaning heavily into this in the form of indestructible summons that provide some absorption to the player, but any damage that is inflicted on said barriers is inflicted onto the player themselves. That might also be a very interesting way of reflecting how force field users in fiction can't indefinitely keep up their shields and the like. Thanks for the suggestion!

[Blackfeather]

On 10/20/2021 at 10:16 AM, Replacement said:

Tuning suggestions version 2:  C-c-combos?

 

If you wanted the shields to be much stronger and more persistent and didn't just want everything to have terrible small % chances to generate them, a combo system like Water Blast or even Dual Blades (careful on that road though) could work.  E.g. All the powers you have listed currently as creating an energy barrier all instead build up stacks to become energy barriers.  To make it a little more interesting, I'd have it build on enemies instead of building up points on you.

 

I realize this is unlikely except in the event of a near-total rewrite, but wanted to throw out the possibility as a novel way to play it more like a regular Controller while spiking an additional dimension of control on demand.

 

Alternate thought that comes to mind: assuming that the T2 would no longer have a chance to generate barriers outright, what if  T7: Barrier Empowerment granted T1: Explosive Sphere, T2: Razor Bubble, and  T3: Detain a single charge of an Energy Barrier upon use? That'd be a pretty hard limit, while also encouraging the take up of those three powers as well. It'd also make the case for bumping up the health of those barriers.

[ninja surprise]

On 10/13/2021 at 1:38 PM, GraspingVileTerror said:

"Shield" is perhaps misleading, and suggests something defensive.

 

Let's see . . .

Barricade?
Blockade?

Blockage?

Boundary?

Impediment?

Limit?

Obstacle?

 

Any of these seems like potential candidates, @Blackfeather?

 

Edit:

Explosive Obstacle

Cutting Boundary

 

eh?

 

 

Is it just me or does this sound like a new poo control powerset with control over constipation and diarrhea...

[Blackfeather]

On 10/23/2021 at 1:15 PM, ninja surprise said:

Is it just me or does this sound like a new poo control powerset with control over constipation and diarrhea...

 

Hereby christened Bowel Control! 😛

[Clave Dark 5]

Any criminal going up against a hero that they know that has a Bowel Control powerset is going to be sweating bullets.

[Blackfeather]

@Replacement, I've gone through the powerset and gotten rid of the chance in T2: Razor Bubble to create an energy barrier. There should be a pretty firm limit on these summons now, and in a way that encourages taking more powers in the set: T1: Explosive Sphere, T2: Razor Bubble, and  T3: Detain will all create an energy barrier on their next use after  T7: Barrier Empowerment is activated. This gives three 'charges' if all three powers are picked, which should hopefully make them more reliable while also more limited. I think that'd tone it down a bit while also still having some relative upsides!

Edited October 27, 2021 by Blackfeather

[Menelruin]

Awesome post overall.  One thought on the T9, maybe make it so that in addition to increased damage, the secondary effects have increased magnitude the more fields it collapses? 

[Blackfeather]

6 hours ago, Menelruin said:

Awesome post overall.  One thought on the T9, maybe make it so that in addition to increased damage, the secondary effects have increased magnitude the more fields it collapses? 

 

Thank you! Glad you do like the overall feel of the powerset. I actually did initially have  T9: Barrier Implosion inflict a stronger Stun effect depending on the amount of barriers it destroys. Eventually, I figured that since damage was the main focus of the power, it wouldn't be on theme - plus its energy barriers provide quite the strong way of hindering enemies already. My initial implementation had it at a Mag 3 Stun, with an additional 1 for every additional barrier stacked (making it a maximum of 5).

 

These sorts of things do make me wish I could directly test these powersets sometimes, see how over/under-powered such changes might be. Thanks again for reading through this proposal! 😅

[Blackfeather]

Going to give @Mezmera a wave as well - hello again! I remember you having some excellent thoughts in my Light Control proposal. Would definitely be interested in hearing your view on Barrier Control too. 😄

[Blackfeather]

Might ping @Galaxy Brain as well! Kind of curious on your thoughts on this set, if it's in a decent place balance wise, and if it's something that could be feasibly implement. Hope it's a good read!

[Blackfeather]

Going to give @Hew another ping over here - hey there! Got another powerset drafted up for Controllers/Dominators. If you're interested, would be glad to hear your thoughts on it. 🙂

[Blackfeather]

Also going to give @5099y_74c05 a ping - would definitely be happy to hear your thoughts on this new powerset I thought up, hope you like it!