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City of Heroes Dev Journals: Power Set Proliferation - Issue 16
The folks from NCsoft have provied us with this developer journal focusing on Powerset Proliferation in the upcoming Issue 16 update to City of Heroes. The journal is written by Senior Designer Floyd Grubb.
By Guest Writer on August 13, 2009
For Issue 16: Power Spectrum, we wanted to proliferate more powersets; at least one per archetype. In looking at which sets to shift around, there were a number of considerations that had to be examined. There wasn't a specific rule, it was more the circumstances of development which really guided the decisions. As the art team was busy with Powerset Customization, we tried to stay away from sets that required too much animation or FX work. We also wanted to fill in matching Themes where we could, like with adding Assault Rifle and Traps to Defenders. In other instances we wanted to fill in highly requested options, such as adding Claws to Brutes. In the end though, there are just far too many aspects to cover individually, but I'd definitely like to highlight some examples.
Tanker & Scrapper: Electric Armor and Electric Melee
The original plan was just to proliferate Electric Armor and to use this opportunity to make some survivability adjustments to the set at the same time. To that end, we renamed "Conserve Power" to "Energize" and added a small self heal and short duration regeneration buff to the power. During testing, we realized that Energize came too late in the lifetime of a character to truly be useful, so for the new versions of the powerset, we swapped the progression of Lightning Reflexes and Energize (Brutes and Stalkers do not get this advantage, unfortunately). Ultimately, we decided that we really wanted a thematic match for Electric Armor on the attack side of the fence, and added Electric Melee to the mix as well.
Dominator: Earth Assault
Earth Assault began life as a training exercise for Jonathan "Sunstorm" Courney. Shortly after he began working here, he decided to build a new assault set for Dominators in order to help familiarize himself with the powers system. He spent some time picking the powers, dreaming up new ones and testing them, and in general just doing some really innovative and crazy things with them. After a while, he decided to take his test bed and turn it into something that could be released to the fans. This led to a lot of rebalancing, rebuilding, and when he was finally satisfied with it, he pitched it to me. Although it's taken awhile for it to be implemented, we're happy that we're finally able to include it with Issue 16.
Earth Assault, like other Assault sets, combines a good mix of Ranged and Melee powers. It has a healthy dose of soft control, good damage, and with Mud Pots - one of the best Damage Auras available.
Earth Assault:
1 Stone Spears2 Stone Mallet4 Tremor10 Hurl Boulder16 Power Boost20 Heavy mallet28 Seismic Smash35 Mud Pots38 Fissure
Additionally, we also conducted a mini-proliferation pass on the Ancillary and Patron Power Pools, adding 5th powers to most Pools and adding Blaze Mastery for Scrappers. This has been something which people have been asking for since Fire primaries and secondary's were given to them.
We hope that all these new powersets and combinations will provide our players with even more ways to enjoy Paragon City and the Rogue Isles so Go! Hunt! Kill Skulls!
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There are some wonderful changes here.
The color changes to the powers were exciting enough (we've been asking for that one for years), but now having some of the CoV sets coming over to CoH, that will be quite nice for us that are strictly heroes and vice versa.
Hot. Thanks for the photos also.
yah i16 has a crap load of updates and changes for the better from Sidekicking to Mission settings
and the whole custom power thingy is sweet.
but Hope the bugs arent so bad that it actually drives people away myself included
Dear Developers and Guest Writer;
The changing of colors for powers is prob the best idea you have come up with since the Ritiki War Zone & Zone Invasions ( as well as the lvl 50+ unlock of widows and soldiers). I applaud your genius.
HOWEVER, the "addition of powers" for AT's is a JOKE. You are recycling the powers from other AT's. Be original create something new like you did with plant trollers etc........
Goo trollers, Water Trollers, Scrapper Shape Shifters, Beast Tanks, Corrs who can call upon animals for attack and defense etc etc
You realize that plant controllers were just copied over from plant dominators yes? Besides, the whole point of proliferation is to add things easily that people might want without having to create a whole new set. In any case, there are two new sets coming with the expansion so that's something at least (though you may have to buy the thing to get them).
"Tanker & Scrapper: Electric Armor and Electric Melee
The original plan was just to proliferate Electric Armor and to use this opportunity to make some survivability adjustments to the set at the same time. To that end, we renamed "Conserve Power" to "Energize" and added a small self heal and short duration regeneration buff to the power. During testing, we realized that Energize came too late in the lifetime of a character to truly be useful, so for the new versions of the powerset, we swapped the progression of Lightning Reflexes and Energize (Brutes and Stalkers do not get this advantage, unfortunately). Ultimately, we decided that we really wanted a thematic match for Electric Armor on the attack side of the fence, and added Electric Melee to the mix as well."
Why don't villains get it, Thats completely unfair. I mean I understand it might mess up all the slotting for any /Electric toons out there but why is it that heroes get something that villains don't? Especially something good like +regen/self heal. Totally BS.
Lets see... release a couple powersets a year OR open up over a dozen options by allowing cross-classes....
And lets not forget that CO (new toy) does not has classes... so you can mix powers from frameworks (powersets) at will
--> superman? Fly, super strength attacks, laser eye, freezing breath, superspeed... you got it
--> batman? Swinging, acrobatics, martial arts, tech devices... all there
--> crazy hero with ice attacks, fire armour, guns and a sword... yeah
--> regular Iceman? Yeah
--> Dr. Fate? yeah...
the list goes on.
CoX is responding to what the playerbase wants (more sets for theirs favourite class) and its also trying to fight off the new kid in town features. Good for them and the players. Let the fight begins! We are the winners after all!
Yah i agree with you here
having a heal on one side and not the other for the same set is BS.
They should put in a extra regen in electric armor for villians as a inherent power.
oh that makes me think though will this be a better power then conserve or just another weak healing power to shut people up
and hopfuly the recharge is longer then most self heal powers . that way you only have it just in case s**t happens and have can only use it once
Yah i agree with you here
having a heal on one side and not the other for the same set is BS.
They should put in a extra regen in electric armor for villians as a inherent power.
oh that makes me think though will this be a better power then conserve or just another weak healing power to shut people up
and hopfuly the recharge is longer then most self heal powers . that way you only have it just in case s**t happens and have can only use it once
being a huge fan of /Elec I'm going to make a scrapper but I still feel ripped off for my brute.
With any hope they'll balance it better by making it take a longer to recharge or make the buff overall shorter then the original Conserve power.
if not then this is one Pissed off brute.
being a huge fan of /Elec I'm going to make a scrapper but I still feel ripped off for my brute.
With any hope they'll balance it better by making it take a longer to recharge or make the buff overall shorter then the original Conserve power.
if not then this is one Pissed off brute.
You have to also look at the fact that it's a brute versus a scrapper. The inherent abilities speak. /elec Scrappers are going to be end sucking squishies. The heal will probably bring a sort of balance compared with the brute's life span and strength. They will probably play with this for a while and end up tweaking it if it's not working, but I can see their thinking process. There are plenty of cross class things that are different. If you compare scrappers and stalkers and their related secondaries (and primaries) there are tons of differences. It's not supposed to be the same on both sides.