More Issue 12 news... shields!

[RTTingle]

BAB (Who else?) dropped a biggie.

The Devs are reportedly very, very, very slowly working on this. I believe BaB said something about this and how complicated it's been to code.

    One problem is thematics: Who'd want a shield JUST to defend with (besides knight wannabes)? There are very few shield-wielding, modern comic book superheroes. One is Captain America.. and he uses the thing as a weapon. So okay, but then why would someone attack with a shield, but not defend with it (like if someone wanted a shield attack/regen scrapper)? Shields would have to be a AT in and of itself.

Shields will be a defensive powerset, not an AT. They'll also be useable with any unarmed or right handed weapon powerset, and that's were the problems come into play. Because Shields require their own combat mode animations, they have to work with every attack power, every buff, debuff, hit reaction, pool power, ancillary power, and patron power that might be used while holding a shield out in front of you. So the bulk of work on Shields is just all the animations.

We have made progress on it which has worked out well since we're dealing wtih a new enemy faction in issue 13 pretty much defined by having a shield.

Cool.

RTT

[Alaric]

Sorry to disapoint you, but BAB has edited the above post. It now says

Shields will be a defensive powerset, not an AT. They'll also be useable with any unarmed or right handed weapon powerset, and that's were the problems come into play. Because Shields require their own combat mode animations, they have to work with every attack power, every buff, debuff, hit reaction, pool power, ancillary power, and patron power that might be used while holding a shield out in front of you. So the bulk of work on Shields is just all the animations.

We have made progress on it which has worked out well since we're dealing wtih a new enemy faction in issue 12 pretty much defined by having a shield.

[edit]Oops...meant issue 12...not 13

Edited by BackAlleyBrawler (03/15/08 01:58 PM)

Apparently, he's talking about the Roman enemy group.

[RTTingle]

Doh!

No matter, still great news all around.  :)  That much closer to shields.  SWEET!

RTT

[BlueBard]

Sorry to disapoint you, but BAB has edited the above post. It now says

Shields will be a defensive powerset, not an AT. They'll also be useable with any unarmed or right handed weapon powerset, and that's were the problems come into play. Because Shields require their own combat mode animations, they have to work with every attack power, every buff, debuff, hit reaction, pool power, ancillary power, and patron power that might be used while holding a shield out in front of you. So the bulk of work on Shields is just all the animations.

We have made progress on it which has worked out well since we're dealing wtih a new enemy faction in issue 12 pretty much defined by having a shield.

[edit]Oops...meant issue 12...not 13

Edited by BackAlleyBrawler (03/15/08 01:58 PM)

Apparently, he's talking about the Roman enemy group.

You'd think that, but Issue 12 is supposedly about going back in time to the Roman era.  If it were going to be Romans, you'd think they would have needed the shields for Issue 12.  Still, anything's possible.

[Alaric]

Sorry to disapoint you, but BAB has edited the above post. It now says

Shields will be a defensive powerset, not an AT. They'll also be useable with any unarmed or right handed weapon powerset, and that's were the problems come into play. Because Shields require their own combat mode animations, they have to work with every attack power, every buff, debuff, hit reaction, pool power, ancillary power, and patron power that might be used while holding a shield out in front of you. So the bulk of work on Shields is just all the animations.

We have made progress on it which has worked out well since we're dealing wtih a new enemy faction in issue 12 pretty much defined by having a shield.

[edit]Oops...meant issue 12...not 13

Edited by BackAlleyBrawler (03/15/08 01:58 PM)

Apparently, he's talking about the Roman enemy group.

You'd think that, but Issue 12 is supposedly about going back in time to the Roman era.  If it were going to be Romans, you'd think they would have needed the shields for Issue 12.  Still, anything's possible.

Uh, that's exactly what he was saying- the shield animations are needed for an enemy grop in I12, presumably the Romans. Note that including the animations does NOT mean that the power set will be available to players yet.

The confusion was that originally BAB made a typo and said issue 13 instead of issue 12- RTT has since changed the name of this thread to correspond better with BAB's corrected post.

[BlueBard]

Aiiie!  Confusion!  Chaos!

{sticks fingers in ears and closes eyes}

Curse all those who post edited posts without post-editing and drive me postal post-haste!

(I mis read.  Sorry.)

[Midnight]

So the animations for broadswords+shields are probably done already. :D

[BlueBard]

So here's a question...

How on earth do they reconcile Dual Blades???

That's going to be a nightmare to make look right, if it's even possible to do...

Okay, I went back and re-read.  They specifically say unarmed and right-handed powersets.  But then you have to set up exclusions.  They'll have to retrofit that capability...

[BlueBard]

Waitaminute...

If they're going to have to modify code so that you can exclude a player from taking certain powerset combinations...

Then it's not much of a stretch to say, if Player N has Powerset X, then these additional Powersets Y and Z are also made available.  Putting that framework in there to handle that shouldn't be much more difficult than just bare exclusions.

Also, those powerset combinations that are deemed to be too game-breaking could simply be disallowed at a more granular level than AT.  More powersets could potentially be 'ported'.  Other powersets based on Origins rather than AT could be introduced.

That could open the whole power system up.  It wouldn't be an overnight change, but over time?

[NeoDarke]

Waitaminute...

If they're going to have to modify code so that you can exclude a player from taking certain powerset combinations...

Then it's not much of a stretch to say, if Player N has Powerset X, then these additional Powersets Y and Z are also made available.  Putting that framework in there to handle that shouldn't be much more difficult than just bare exclusions.

Also, those powerset combinations that are deemed to be too game-breaking could simply be disallowed at a more granular level than AT.  More powersets could potentially be 'ported'.  Other powersets based on Origins rather than AT could be introduced.

That could open the whole power system up.  It wouldn't be an overnight change, but over time?

Well now... Well now indeed... I like the way you think BlueBard.  :thumbup:

[DMenacer]

This can work out nice if we aren't limited on which powers we can pick. I would love to have the Blasters Power Push power to use as super breath on my Superman styled hero. Then if I can select a ice power to use as his super breath or even be able to select super speed without having to select Hasten.