Super strength: interacting with environment, i.e, lifting

[Rhale]

Super strength: interacting with the environment, i.e, being able to "lift" heavy objects for different effects (throwing, freeing victims, hitting baddies with heavy objects, etc.). Also, comics, movies, and TV heroes constantly cause collateral damage, and those with any greater than normal strength are always lifting/moving heavy objects for various reasons, busting through doors, even walls.  Is it possible to build that mechanic into the CoH game somehow?

Furthermore, the old trailers of the live game often depicted heavy objects being lifted and thrown. Perhaps this mechanic was planned all along.

 

 

[Rudra]

You can do a lot more in presenting a story in a cinematic than you can in a game. Cinematics don't require players to interact with anything, so there is no need to develop structures/elements for the player to interact with, and possibly break the game in creative ways doing so when it comes to damaging the surrounding terrain. Maps are not designed as destructible. Set mobs like cars and civilians need to be able to follow preset paths on the zones to avoid causing problems in the game, so they are neither destructible nor liftable. (Edit: You can see how poorly mobs not following logical paths are received by watching the NPCs at Portal Corp. for instance. It very much breaks immersion.) Even the vehicles you see being destroyed by various groups are not part of the zone map, but are destructible objects that are part of that group's spawn. Buildings have no interiors, so making them destructible would provide major holes in the map for players to get under the map with, so they are not destructible. Even the buildings you enter teleport you to another part of the map much lower than the base map which has its enclosing features rather than letting you directly into the building. The only maps with destructible elements for players are the Mayhems, and those are only partial zone maps that had to be created specifically for their designated purpose. And even on those you can't damage infrastructure like buildings, bridges, and roads.

 

As far as the mechanic itself goes? Characters can already lift massive weights using powers like Hurl. They just do so without damaging the map.

 

Edited May 13 by Rudra
Edited again to correct "possible" to "possibly".

[Ghost]

While it would be cool, it would also open the door to a lot more requests and expectations for what could be done to/with the environment.

 

[Steampunkette]

The cars you see parked in parking lots in CoH are not interactable objects, they're part of the map. Sure, they're "Objects" in the map design sense, but so are sections of the War Walls and buildings and the hills.

 

Even if there were an easy way to flag them "Throwable" you'd then need to move onto the second hard part... Telling the game engine what that means. City of Heroes is built on a game engine over 30 years old that wasn't designed for destructible environments. In point of fact, I don't think there were any games at that time that sought to have malleable environments. So you'd need to build up a massive code base within the spaghetti that is CoH to tell it "This is what a throwable object is". We're talking "Expansion Territory" levels of new code.

 

Then, someone will have to go through every map in the game, including mission maps with cars and any other object that the devs want to be throwable and delete every object on those maps only to replace them with the new Throwable version of the object.

 

Then we'd need an animator to go in and design an animation for lifting objects. An animation for carrying an object while walking. An animation for carrying an object while running. Eight more animations for carrying an object while running forward-right, right, backward right, backward, backward left, left, and forward left. Then more for jumping while carrying an object. Then at least ten more for flying while carrying an object. Then another two for Teleporting while carrying an object. Then another nine for swimming while carrying an object. And then triple it since there's 3 body types that all need the animations.

 

And then animations for throwing an object while standing, jumping, or flying.

 

Then they have to go into the super strength powerset and figure out where to put the "Can now interact with throwable objects" tag on the powers.

 

Then they have to go through the various possible thrown objects and determine how much damage they do, how much of an area they hit, how many targets, etc. And create an individual power for every thrown object in the game to trigger when it gets 'Thrown'.

 

And then create throwing animations for every object.

 

ALL of this, just so Superstrength Characters can ignore their powerset to instead run around the area grabbing every item they can find to chuck them at enemies instead of bothering with things like "Recharge Times" or "Endurance Costs" or other balancing metrics.

 

It would certainly be cool. But the amount of effort involved is flatly insane for the benefit of only a handful of characters within a handful of archetypes. Heck, I'd posit the effort would be insane for any game not designed from the ground up to allow for it even if -everyone- got the power to throw any object on the map.

Edited Friday at 03:28 PM by Steampunkette

[Chance Jackson]

On 5/16/2025 at 8:26 AM, Steampunkette said:

Telling the game engine what that means. City of Heroes is built on a game engine over 30 years old that wasn't designed for destructible environments. In point of fact, I don't think there were any games at that time that sought to have malleable environments. 

 

 

In that time period? Only the Red Faction games come to mind, i think they called their system Geo mod.

 

 

That aside

 

I could see a specific context temp power being granted when you are in front/behind (or flying just above the roof of) certain cars that when activated uses the throw boulder animation but with that car replacing the boulder, i won't pretend to know how feasible that is.

[Rudra]

2 hours ago, Chance Jackson said:

I could see a specific context temp power being granted when you are in front/behind (or flying just above the roof of) certain cars that when activated uses the throw boulder animation but with that car replacing the boulder, i won't pretend to know how feasible that is.

So would there now be two f those cars? The one actually part of the map and the one you are throwing that will disappear as it shatters into little rock shards after?

[srmalloy]

On 5/16/2025 at 5:26 AM, Steampunkette said:

City of Heroes is built on a game engine over 30 years old that wasn't designed for destructible environments.

I would be happy for immersion enhancement to take the existing 'Seismic' path aura spray (the ground cracking under your feet) and have it applied once (and, like the path aura, fade away after a short time) whenever something (you, an NPC mob, something thrown) hit a wall. There should already be a check to stop 'flung' objects that hit walls, so adding a 'draw a temporary seismic crackle at the impact point' visual doesn't seem too difficult.

[Captain Fabulous]

On 5/16/2025 at 8:26 AM, Steampunkette said:

The cars you see parked in parking lots in CoH are not interactable objects, they're part of the map. Sure, they're "Objects" in the map design sense, but so are sections of the War Walls and buildings and the hills.

 

Even if there were an easy way to flag them "Throwable" you'd then need to move onto the second hard part... Telling the game engine what that means. City of Heroes is built on a game engine over 30 years old that wasn't designed for destructible environments. In point of fact, I don't think there were any games at that time that sought to have malleable environments. So you'd need to build up a massive code base within the spaghetti that is CoH to tell it "This is what a throwable object is". We're talking "Expansion Territory" levels of new code.

 

Then, someone will have to go through every map in the game, including mission maps with cars and any other object that the devs want to be throwable and delete every object on those maps only to replace them with the new Throwable version of the object.

 

Then we'd need an animator to go in and design an animation for lifting objects. An animation for carrying an object while walking. An animation for carrying an object while running. Eight more animations for carrying an object while running forward-right, right, backward right, backward, backward left, left, and forward left. Then more for jumping while carrying an object. Then at least ten more for flying while carrying an object. Then another two for Teleporting while carrying an object. Then another nine for swimming while carrying an object. And then triple it since there's 3 body types that all need the animations.

 

And then animations for throwing an object while standing, jumping, or flying.

 

Then they have to go into the super strength powerset and figure out where to put the "Can now interact with throwable objects" tag on the powers.

 

Then they have to go through the various possible thrown objects and determine how much damage they do, how much of an area they hit, how many targets, etc. And create an individual power for every thrown object in the game to trigger when it gets 'Thrown'.

 

And then create throwing animations for every object.

 

ALL of this, just so Superstrength Characters can ignore their powerset to instead run around the area grabbing every item they can find to chuck them at enemies instead of bothering with things like "Recharge Times" or "Endurance Costs" or other balancing metrics.

 

It would certainly be cool. But the amount of effort involved is flatly insane for the benefit of only a handful of characters within a handful of archetypes. Heck, I'd posit the effort would be insane for any game not designed from the ground up to allow for it even if -everyone- got the power to throw any object on the map.

And?

[Steampunkette]

3 hours ago, srmalloy said:

I would be happy for immersion enhancement to take the existing 'Seismic' path aura spray (the ground cracking under your feet) and have it applied once (and, like the path aura, fade away after a short time) whenever something (you, an NPC mob, something thrown) hit a wall. There should already be a check to stop 'flung' objects that hit walls, so adding a 'draw a temporary seismic crackle at the impact point' visual doesn't seem too difficult.

The game doesn't have a real distinction between "Wall" and "Floor". It's all just surfaces. Put a floor tile so it's vertical and you can't walk on it 'cause there's only so steep an angle you can be on.

 

There's also no "Collision" code in the game, for similar reasons, which is why when you hit someone with repel when they're pressed against a wall they keep doing the arm flail animation while floating there before falling.

1 hour ago, Captain Fabulous said:

And?

And so it's an unreasonable suggestion?

 

Like. What? You want them to put all additional powers/mechanics/etc on hold for the next 2-4 years and focus their attention on cracking a walnut so big that a paid staff of 200 employees was like "Hah! No."?

 

 

[Biff Pow]

I think the closest to making this possible is replacing the boulder in Hurl with the random objects from Gravity Control/Propel. Sometimes it would be cool, sometimes it would be weird.

[srmalloy]

19 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

There's also no "Collision" code in the game, for similar reasons, which is why when you hit someone with repel when they're pressed against a wall they keep doing the arm flail animation while floating there before falling.

There's also a periodic bug in the 'knockback into a surface' computation where, if you knock back a mob when they're standing in front of a closed sliding door (the ones partitioning off map sections to keep mobs from wandering out of a particular part of the map, or flagged to require a key to open), you can glitch their impact against the door, and they'll wind up on the other side of the door where they can't do anything to you... until you open the door, at which point they'll get an attack off the moment the server sees that the door is no longer a line-of-fire block (and before you can get an attack of your own off).

[Steampunkette]

1 hour ago, srmalloy said:

There's also a periodic bug in the 'knockback into a surface' computation where, if you knock back a mob when they're standing in front of a closed sliding door (the ones partitioning off map sections to keep mobs from wandering out of a particular part of the map, or flagged to require a key to open), you can glitch their impact against the door, and they'll wind up on the other side of the door where they can't do anything to you... until you open the door, at which point they'll get an attack off the moment the server sees that the door is no longer a line-of-fire block (and before you can get an attack of your own off).

Very True!

 

However I think ground target area of effect can bypass the door, too. It's been a -long- time since I've been in that situation.

 

Oh. You know what? I bet teleport-attacks would still work, too? Shield Charge, Lightning Rod, Burst of Speed, Savage Leap... So long as your buddy is targeting the bad guy, still, after he goes through the door, target your teammate and do the teleport attack -to- them, and hit the guy behind the door!

 

[Rudra]

6 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

Very True!

 

However I think ground target area of effect can bypass the door, too. It's been a -long- time since I've been in that situation.

 

Oh. You know what? I bet teleport-attacks would still work, too? Shield Charge, Lightning Rod, Burst of Speed, Savage Leap... So long as your buddy is targeting the bad guy, still, after he goes through the door, target your teammate and do the teleport attack -to- them, and hit the guy behind the door!

 

If ground AoEs can't, and I don't know if they can or not, then the teleport attacks can't either. At least as far as Lightning Rod goes. Because it is targeted at a spot on the ground, not a selected target.

[Steampunkette]

Just now, Rudra said:

If ground AoEs can't, and I don't know if they can or not, then the teleport attacks can't either. At least as far as Lightning Rod goes. Because it is targeted at a spot on the ground, not a selected target.

Damn! You're right. Same with Shield Charge.

 

However, Savage Leap, at least, has an interesting interaction with target of target!

[Rudra]

3 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

Damn! You're right. Same with Shield Charge.

 

However, Savage Leap, at least, has an interesting interaction with target of target!

Probably the best way to deal with an enemy knocked through a closed door that the player can't open is if the character has Teleport Target and already had the enemy targeted or the character has Fold Space. Then the target can be brought back to where they can be fought.

 

All this is a tangent to the OP anyway, but yeah, there are work arounds if the character has the correct powers.

[Captain Fabulous]

23 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

Like. What? You want them to put all additional powers/mechanics/etc on hold for the next 2-4 years and focus their attention on cracking a walnut so big that a paid staff of 200 employees was like "Hah! No."?

Oh I thought you were holding back and had more reasons. 🤭

[Steampunkette]

11 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Oh I thought you were holding back and had more reasons. 🤭

Oh, nah. That was all of them, really.

 

Just way too big an investment for way too little benefit. There's still Champions Online, out there, for people who want to chuck trucks, too! It was built into that game from day 1.

[Chance Jackson]

On 5/17/2025 at 1:34 PM, Rudra said:

So would there now be two f those cars? The one actually part of the map and the one you are throwing that will disappear as it shatters into little rock shards after?

For the "cars" that are just part of the scenery/map I'd say they should become invisible & unthrowable for 30 seconds after using the throw temp power to help sell the experience

 

If that's not feasible, there are car entities as seen in the Mayhem mission & this system coul apply to them.

[Snarky]

And being able to feed upon civilians, watching their blood drained corpses slump to the ground.  A statement about the inevitable closeness of death.  And littering. 

[Steampunkette]

10 hours ago, Chance Jackson said:

For the "cars" that are just part of the scenery/map I'd say they should become invisible & unthrowable for 30 seconds after using the throw temp power to help sell the experience

 

If that's not feasible, there are car entities as seen in the Mayhem mission & this system coul apply to them.

See my above post.

 

The amount of underlying code and design work would be an incredibly massive undertaking for a very minor benefit that only a handful of characters would enjoy.

 

It's just not worth it from a cost/benefit perspective.

[srmalloy]

On 5/19/2025 at 1:34 PM, Rudra said:

Probably the best way to deal with an enemy knocked through a closed door that the player can't open is if the character has Teleport Target and already had the enemy targeted or the character has Fold Space. Then the target can be brought back to where they can be fought.

There is an odd target interaction that I've run into that sort of parallels this. With the Freakshow, a rezzing mob can't be targeted for an attack until they complete the rez animation, although they can be damaged by PBAoE attacks and AoE attacks targeted at a nearby mob or location. However, there is an odd corner case where you can be firing off an attack that defeats a Freakshow, then have another attack -- a regular single-target or cone attack that requires a targeted mob -- queued up while the first attack is still animating, and if you hit the timing just right, the queued attack will persist and go off while the Freakshow is rezzing, damaging them. I've had this happen to me three times while getting the Tank Buster (and part of Assault and Battery) badge, but I haven't been able to get it to happen deliberately; it seems to require a really squirrely timing between the animation of the attack that defeats the mob and the subsequent attack.