What is a Powerset? Guns vs Magicians. I Can't Think of a Good Title for this Thread.

[Herotu]

I was cobbling together yet another pulp Rocketeer-a-like character and I wondered ...

 

I feel rather limited to guns and such. I don't feel like it's feasible to put something like Ice Control on him. Because the Ice Control animations look he's like a magician waving his arms in the air like that. 

 

So I thought ... what if the powers came from a gun? 
Then I was thinking what is a powerset? I mean... what's the determining thing?

Originally the powersets seem to have been simple elements: Fire, Ice, Earth..  then it got complicated. Now we've got a situation where each individual weapons is supposedly it's own powerset (let's not talk about bean bags and flamethrowers not being Assault Rifles here).

 

What constitutes a powerset? I feel like "Ice" is super-vague and puts a block on the creation of non-magician ice-oriented powersets, such as Ice Rifle.

 

But maybe that's not the way the developers would see an alternative to what I've described here as Magician Ice. What if they see the alternative as the same powersets but with weapons and weapon-animations instead (which was my initial desire). 

What do you think?

Edited August 2, 2022 by Herotu

[Trike]

I do wonder how difficult it would be to create Technology/Science attacks of things like ice, fire, sonic, and mental powers.

 

In the real world we have sound cannons, and the Klingons use sonic blasters. DC has a number of villains who use ice weapons, particularly Mr. Freeze and Captain Cold. DC’s Mad Hatter and Marvel’s Ringmaster use mind-control hats, and Marvel also has the brainwashing Serpent Crown, while the Penguin has his mesmerizing umbrella (also a heat ray umbrella). Jafar in Aladdin has a mind-control staff, as does Loki in the MCU. Then there are characters like Paste Pot Pete who have glue guns to immobilize foes.

 

So it’s not like these types of weapons are unprecedented. The question is, how hard would it be to animate these things in the game.

[Troo]

1 hour ago, Herotu said:

What do you think?

 

Propose some new power sets. I might try a sonic cannon where I'm not interested in yelling really loud.

[Marshal_General]

 

1 hour ago, Troo said:

 

Propose some new power sets. I might try a sonic cannon where I'm not interested in yelling really loud.

That is why I use the sonic hand animations.

 

Talk to the hand and it will yell back at you.

[Six-Six]

I got the impression that the OP is not so much about new power sets, but new animations for existing powers.

Elemental Blasts currently fire off from our toon's hands. I wouldn't mind if they had a staff/wand alternative and/or a gun/gizmo alternatives. Similarly, bullets and beams can have an arm or shoulder cannon version (or that one full-array grenade launching system from Imperial Defence Forces). 

 

Edit:
Just had another thought right as I clicked submit...

What if Origins played a part.
If you were Natural, then you get the animations we get now.
If you were Tech, you'd have more access to gun-based weapons
Science may be more of the Ironman/power glove or shoulder mounted weapons as opposed to guns
Magic gives you staves, wands, spell books.
I have nothing for mutation.

Edited August 2, 2022 by Six-Six

[Troo]

10 minutes ago, Six-Six said:

I got the impression that the OP is not so much about new power sets, but new animations for existing powers.

 

I agree, however it might be easier to steal some existing assets and roll a new powerset rather than try to line up and correctly time animations to powers.

[Luminara]

4 hours ago, Herotu said:

Then I was thinking what is a powerset? I mean... what's the determining thing?

 

An assemblage of nine powers linked thematically and accessible at specific levels.

 

4 hours ago, Herotu said:

Originally the powersets seem to have been simple elements: Fire, Ice, Earth..

 

Assault Rifle, Broadsword, Axe, Mace, Devices, Claws, Martial Arts, Spines, a whole lot of stuff that wasn't tied to "elements" when the game was released.

[Bionic_Flea]

When I want to use a blast set and not be magical, I give them either gauntlets or suit of armor, or pretend they just shoot ice out of their hands like X-men's Iceman.

 

That said, I wouldn't mind additional alternate animations and other computer wizardry beyond my ken to have say ice blast looking like dual pistols, AR, or Beam.

Edited August 5, 2022 by Bionic_Flea

[TalynDerre]

I'd definitely be down for alternate animations for blast-y powers.  Guns and eye-beams are both variants I would love to use for Ice, Fire, or Energy attacks.

[Clave Dark 5]

Always up for being able to choose animations (maybe my guy has Ice Spit powers ok?!) but I can't imagine that's not going to be a hell of a lot of work to rejigger the animation time of that one Poison spitting attack gesture to fit the 1.12 second cast time for Ice Bolt, or the 1.17 seconds cast time for Fire Bolt or the 1.23 seconds cast time for... you get the idea.  But man, if they got that done?  So cool.

 

Please note all numbers are imaginary.

[Herotu]

3 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Always up for being able to choose animations (maybe my guy has Ice Spit powers ok?!) but I can't imagine that's not going to be a hell of a lot of work to rejigger the animation time of that one Poison spitting attack gesture to fit the 1.12 second cast time for Ice Bolt, or the 1.17 seconds cast time for Fire Bolt or the 1.23 seconds cast time for... you get the idea.  But man, if they got that done?  So cool.

 

Please note all numbers are imaginary.

So if alternate animations are so difficult, would a bunch of new Gun Powersets seem fitting, or should such Gun variety powersets also have other concepts tied in to differentiate them from the Magicians? If so, this seems like it would also take a considerable amount of extra time to produce.

Edited August 3, 2022 by Herotu
Reason for edit

[Six-Six]

Incidentally, Mental Blast has an alternative animation that I think is really cool. Your toon stands back, raises both arms and conjures a forked lightning burst. It's very fitting for wizardry folk, even though the power is psy/mental. 

A few NPC's have power animations not available to us, like CoT and midnighters' staff (wooden stick, not personnel though they do dress like staff) powers. Praetorian clockwork have that cool district 9 lightning bolt from their shoulder or back. in fact, a lot of gold weaponry have cooler animations and sound effects. the heavy armoured paragon police shoot projectiles from their arms.

Some "gestures" are already existing as well: like toxic dart fired from the wrist. It would be cool to have like a wrist mounted crossbow--heck, even just a regular crossbow at that. I hope those get ported to us some day.

 

[Aracknight]

19 hours ago, Six-Six said:

 

What if Origins played a part.
If you were Natural, then you get the animations we get now.
If you were Tech, you'd have more access to gun-based weapons
Science may be more of the Ironman/power glove or shoulder mounted weapons as opposed to guns
Magic gives you staves, wands, spell books.
I have nothing for mutation.

Love this thinking.

[Bill Z Bubba]

On 8/2/2022 at 10:13 AM, Herotu said:

What do you think?

 

I think dual pistols have cryo rounds.

 

On 8/2/2022 at 12:56 PM, Six-Six said:

What if Origins played a part.

 

Tons of work but that would have been awesome from day 1.

[Rishidian]

On 8/2/2022 at 8:39 AM, Trike said:

In the real world we have sound cannons, and the Klingons use sonic blasters.

Real World Klingons?

 

I have friends that were HUGELY into the Star Trek conventions - dressed up as Klingons and did security for them,  But I wouldn't call them Klingons.

[biostem]

I imagine it went something like this, when it came time to create a new powerset:  "OK, we're gonna create a new set.  We want it to be as broadly appealing as possible.  Making the character pull out a gun or sword is really specific, so we'll just have them kind of gesture with their hands."

 

That being said, it still boggles my mind that they never added things like a beam rifle model that looks like a large a large wand or obviously magical/biological in appearance...

[Shred Monkey]

I could absolutely get behind new animations for powersets to use weapons.  Whether it's sci-fi guns, or magic wands/staffs, or even just the option to make things come from other areas of the body (just because psi stuff affects enemy minds doesn't mean it has come from my forehead with my hands at my temples.)  It would be a really nice addition to the game.

 

 

[TheZag]

Certain sets scream out a particular origin to me.  I generally try to choose an origin that fits the powerset instead of wanting alternate animations to fit an origin.  Guns and gadgets are technology for me while the melee weapons and 'normal' punches/kicks are natural.  An alternative to picking origin based on powers is to do it based on the character.  Make a cyborg or a ghost or a radioactive something and choose origin based on that.

 

With all that said,  if the animations were added for gun fired,  wand fired,  mouth/ hand/ eye/ chest fired,  i would use them.  Except for mouth fired,  i wouldnt use that,  alternate animations for poison please 🙂

 

[Andreah]

I'd like optional origin-themed animations/vfx, perhaps even variant names of powers in every powerset. But I wouldn't want them tied to character origin specifically. I'd let people mix/match them however they wanted.

[Techwright]

On 8/2/2022 at 10:13 AM, Herotu said:

What is a Powerset? Guns vs Magicians. I Can't Think of a Good Title for this Thread.

 

When I'm in such a predicament, I generally go with "Bob".  If I'm feeling whimsical, I'll go with whatever the name of the worst hurricane was from the past 12 months.  Either way, the thread title is memorable.

 

 

On 8/3/2022 at 2:24 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

I think dual pistols have cryo rounds.

I had the same thought, but it is a different performance, so I can see wanting to port the visual effects to the other powerset.

 

 

Part of the problem is:  why stop at guns and wands?  Why not an axe that casts razor ice with each swing, or a shoulder-mounted canon, or one's little pet shoulder cat blowing up a gale, etc.?  Someone is going to have a concept that sounds cool but means a ton of work.  That said, I could get behind some sort of wrist gadget that looks like Black Widow's sting bracelets.  That way, the blast still comes from the hands/wrists utilizing a visual tech alternative without having to rework the power animations.

[dtjunkie]

On 8/2/2022 at 3:07 PM, Bionic_Flea said:

When I want to use a blast set and not be magical, I give them either gauntlets or suit of armor, or pretend they just shoot ice out of their hands like X-men's Iceman.

 

That said, I wouldn't mind additional alternate animations and other computer wizardry beyond my ken to have say ice blast looking like dual pistols, AR, or Beam.

 

 

Yes this is my solution. I usually design the costume so the blasts are obviously being generated from the technology of the suit.

[Clave Dark 5]

Hope no one steps on those Big Swede Shoes...

 

...  don't get up, I know the way out.

[Sir Myshkin]

Raises the question of whether a dedicated set of animations to realign all of the blast sets into weapon animations is called for, or maybe the development of just one new set focused on being able to manipulate a few core common choices (like Dual Pistols) with the potential of being added to over time.

 

Above all, I really really want to play an Arcane Tome character now.

[MistressOhm]

I can actually see "guns" being used for a lot of the blaster sets.  It'd mean more animation sets, but the powers themselves wouldn't have to change.

 

And yes, having Magical origin on a lot of characters, I'd love to see some arcane handwaving, finger-tutting, and other coolness to make powers into cast spells rather than just "here, have faceful of flames/cold/darkness/energy/whatever". 

 

BUT... I know that would be a hell of a lot of work.  So it's not expected to happen.

[That Ninja]

Personally, I would really like if they added blaster hand animations to the beam rifle power set. Beam rifle seems like a cool set, but I'd rather be an armored guy or a like a future man who can shoot beams from his hands or whatever rather than just using the rifle models which are kind of ugly to me.