New Secondary Powerset

[dragonhawk777]

This isnt so much of a new power set as it is more of a fully customize of existing powersets.  The initial try with this woul be centered on the Tac Arrow, Traps, Devices power sets and come up with a merger of them to give players more theme options.  You would still have nine powers in the set but the difference is that each power would have three options to accomodate different weapons.  DCUO did something like this so that you could select fire but still use a bow or a gun or have it fire from your hands.  So all the powers will have an option based on it being used with your characters hands, with a bow, and with a gun.

 

So to demonstrate with the first power Electrofied Net.  In all its forms it would still immobilize and do a small amount of damage.  So with the first power you would get three options:

Electrofied Net Grenade:  Thrown with hand animations.

Electrofied Net Arrow:  Shot using bow animations

Electrofied Net Launcher:  Shot using gun animations.

The initial sets are for blasters, defenders, and corruptors, and since it for all of them it will be light on melee attacks and will focus more on debuffs, control, and buffs.  Defenders/corruptors usually have a heal so at level 20 you will get a power difference so they will get a heal, while blasters will get their power that boosts recovery/regen.  Other than that all the powers can be shared but the numbers will change depending on the AT.  So the blaster version would have the lowest debuff number, but have the highest damage if the power does damage.  Defenders would be the opposite end with them having the highest debuff or buff numbers but will ahve the lowest damage numbers.

 

Electrofied Net Grenade/Arrow/Shot:  Immobilizes and does a light dot damage.

Caltrops/Glue Arrow/Glue Shot:  Location AoE -speed, -recharge.

Acid Grenade/Arrow/Shot:  Ranged target, -defense, -resistance

Seeker Drone/Flash Arrow/Dazzling Shot:  Targeted AoE, -to hit, - perception

Field Operative:  +Stealth, +Defense

Target Drone:  +Recovery/Regen, +to hit, +damage.  For blasters only.

Healing Grenade/Arrow/Shot:  Targeted AoE heal.  For defenders and corruptors.

Trip Mine:  Remain unchanged, no options.

Stun Grenade/ESD Arrow/ESD Shot:  Targeted AoE stun.

Power Blade:  Melee damage, -resistance, +stun.  Animation options are the blade from the Psi power set or the Vanguard energy sword.

 

In the character creation if you chose the power set you would have a number of weapon options available.  So you would select the type of bow you would use and which gun type (Pistol, AR, Beam) and style you want to use.  These would only come into play if you chose a power that corresponded to that weapon type.  You can also mix and match if you wanted to make a character that carried a variety of weapons.  So for example you could choose Glue Arrow and also choose Arrow Shot.  Animation wise you would use bow animations for Glue Arrow and AR or Pistol animations for Acid Shot.

 

The idea of the set is to give the player options to make concepts taht dont lock you into specific power animations.  So if you were making a character that used a bow for his primary but didnt want all his secondaries to be tied to his bow like TA does, but did want some of them.  So he might take Electrofied Net Arrow and Glue Arrow, but also take Seeker Drone and Stun Grenade, because their concept is an archer who also uses a variety devices besides his bow.  

 

Considering I was proposing some pretty new power selection mechanics I thought I would make it as easy on the devs as I could with mowers and animations.  All the animations already exist in the game so its chiefly a matter of blending them all into the single power set.  Sets like Traps and Devices also dont have a bright or dark option so the devs dont have to worry about programming in options for that.  If the idea worked out we could look at expanding it to cover other power sets like energy, dark, or the elemental based powers.

[Rudra]

Yeah, I really don't see this happening. If it does? Kudos.

 

Never played DCUO, so I have no reference for how they did anything. In CO, you could only mix and match weapons, weapon types, and power types by picking from different power sets as you went, which also locked you into lower tier powers from those sets.

 

In CoX, we are locked into power sets. And you are basically asking for a rework of the game. If the devs can do this and not have to rework the game? Then maybe they will.

 

I'm not a dev, but it seems like you are asking for a LOT of re-animation work across all the power sets. And that is just too much to ask for.

 

Edit: You are also ignoring animation times between those options. And animation times are factored into the powers' balance considerations. So with your suggestion as stands, a single power could have several different animation times depending on what choices the player makes. The only way to avoid that is to make new animations for each of those options that fits into how the power is balanced. And that actually further complicates your suggestion rather than simplifies it. So again, while I am not a dev, to me it looks like you are asking for entirely too much.

Edited April 23, 2022 by Rudra

[dragonhawk777]

All the development would basically be in the leveling process, when you see the trainer.  I am not sure how much of a change this would be from a programming standpoint, but i do not believe it would qualify as reworking the game.  From a player standpoint you would only be seeing a difference when you visited the trainer and then you have basicaly an added screen if you select a power from the secondary set, or each secondary power would have the three options and you just have to select one of them.

 

As far as animation times go I dont see that as a factor because all the powers with diferent animations are debuffs and not attacks.  Yes for attacks animation times certainly does play into the mindset of a percentage of the player base, but this does not seem to come into play for debuffs.  Debuffs biggest factors seem to be more centered on how good the numbers are and how well it stays on a target or group.  That was what i was thinking when I set them up so each option has the same targeting mechanics.  So you wont get one option where its a location aoe for one option and a targeted aoe for another option.  I kept the to real attacks in the set (Trip Mine & Power Blade) all the same and wont have any animation differences.

[Rudra]

You're not looking at it from both sides. Make all the suggestions you want, but you also need to account for the fact the dev team is a small volunteer group not getting paid to do this and working it on the side from their actual jobs. You have to consider how much work a suggestion would be for them.

 

1 hour ago, dragonhawk777 said:

As far as animation times go I dont see that as a factor because all the powers with diferent animations are debuffs and not attacks.  Yes for attacks animation times certainly does play into the mindset of a percentage of the player base, but this does not seem to come into play for debuffs.

And yet every debuff also has an animation. And those animation times need to match up if you want to have different animations for those debuff attacks. And if they are inflicted on an enemy, they can still miss in many cases, they are still an attack. They just may not be a damaging attack.

 

Point is, aim smaller. I may be wrong, but it seriously looks like you are asking for a massive rework of power animations and options in a single post. Remember, the devs are not pulling 9-5'ers or whatever on CoX. They are giving what spare time they have. Don't ask them for the world. We can get the world in smaller incremental steps instead.

[dragonhawk777]

I take into account those things, which is why I put as much copy and paste aspects as I can.  The idea though is always going to come first, not whether or not the devs will impliment it.  I have simplified ideas in the ppast and seen nothing come of it, like where I proposed they remove Time Bomb and replace it with another ability.  Either an existing one like Seeker Drone or a new power that uses existing mechanics like being a targeted AoE (Sticky Bomb), and Time Bomb is probably one of the most hated and least taken ability in the game.  Be they be a part time dev team or a full time team working for an established company, I never hold out much hope that an idea will actually get implimented, no matter how well the idea is recieved.  So rather than a discussion on whether or not the devs are actually going to impliment the idea, I would rather have a discussion on the pluses and minuses of the ideas mechanics, such as your issues with animation time differences.

 

Your animation time issues are I believe a non issue as you are looking at a 1 sec or less difference in animations.  When I see issues being brought up on the Defender/Coruptor forums it is rare to nonexistant that I see things about a certain set is bad because of using bow animations as opposed to a hand wave animation.  What seems to be a bigger issue with a debuff is on whether or not you can keep the debuff on the target rather than debuf A has a 1 sec longer cast time than debuff B.  One of the reasons why you see more Rad defenders vs dark defenders is because Tar Patch is a location AoE taht mobs can and do walk out of vs Enervating Field which is targeted and stays on the target no matter where he moves to.  The fact taht debuffs typically last more than 30 sec means that the primary issue is the abilities recharge (for future applications), how well the ability debuffs the target, and if it allows you to do other things or do you have to micromanage its applications.

[Rudra]

Yeah, see, that is why I prefer dark over rad. Tar Patch is a placed AoE so anything that decides it wants a piece of me is going to get debuffed. As opposed to rad's debuff which runs away from the fight leaving everything else in my face unaffected while aggroing everything across literally three rooms as the boss runs a ridiculous distance away. All that is a side note to the OP anyway.

 

Guess I'll just leave this discussion as 'Agree to disagree'. If you ask for the world all at once though, you will never get it.

[TheZag]

There is 1 powerset where the devs programmed a choice between two powers - super reflexes on sentinels.  So it is possible but i heard it was quite the pain in the butt to pull off.  I dont think they were in a hurry to try it again but you never know.

[dragonhawk777]

1 hour ago, TheZag said:

There is 1 powerset where the devs programmed a choice between two powers - super reflexes on sentinels.  So it is possible but i heard it was quite the pain in the butt to pull off.  I dont think they were in a hurry to try it again but you never know.

What did they do to SR on Sentinels?