City of Villians

[schild]

Alright, let's play the continuity card? Who the hell would want to play an EVIL DEFENDER? It doesn't make sense. The wookie lives on Endor.

In all seriousness, I just can't see a mastermind not being a controller. That's what they do - control. They do nothing else. They manipulate and make subjects do all their work. From James Bond to Austin Power to Evil Genius to George Burns to Magneto. They all made little bitches out of 'stupider' evil beings.

I can't even think of an actual evil defender. A defender thinks before he shoots. Evil shoots first and asks questions later.

Why be Captain America when you can be Ego, destroyer of worlds. Or, if you prefer to think on a smaller scale, Magneto/Dr. Doom/whoever.

[eldaec]

I can see the continuity problem with healing (though I can't see a mmorpg being made without it any time soon). But the key defining features of a defender playstyle in coh are debuffing, buffing, and ranged damage.

I see no problem at all with debuffing and ranged damage. And having a criminal group enhancing their members with buffs doesn't seem too crazy (call them superdyne effects, prayers to evil gods, putting the fear of god into your allies, or whatever).

I think you're getting too much into the defender rp concept.

I agree I can't imagine a defender of villians. But I can imagine a buff/debuff/ranged-damage villian.

[eldaec]

I agree mastermind might be a controller, or might be a pet / buff / debuff guy, or might be something else.

Just saying I can't see CoV not having a primary buff/debuff AT (if not now then certainly by the end of beta) simply becuase when playing in groups, massively stacked buffs are everything in Paragon city. When you play CoH in a solid 40+ group, the buff icons that appear next to the group window should stretch from one side of the screen to the other, and your video card should screaming at you for the twelve metric asstonnes of buff particle effects that you are asking it to draw; your costume should be completely obscured by the flames, sparkles, rainbows, glows, and auras of goodness that are streaming out of every pore. If Paragon city had a fire service, then 40+ heroes would never get anything done as they would be continually accosted by large men with hoses desperate to prevent third degree burns setting in as a result of your pyrotechnic magnificence.

This is also why people at high levels fight +4s, wheras at low levels you are most efficient hunting -1s.

[Rodent]

Looks like CoV will be alot more streamlined. Perhaps Cryptic is trying to avoid issues like the constant "Scrappers tank aswell as Tanks" and "Controllers make Defenders redundant".

[Llava]

Evil Defenders:

http://www.uncannyxmen.net/db/characters/showquestion.asp?fldAuto=543

Haven, a villainess in the X-Men continuity, had extremely powerful healing abilities.  She used these powers to form a cult with the ultimate goal of moving the world into its utopian stage- by causing enough massive disasters to wipe out 2/3rds of the population.  She would be an empathy defender, no question.

http://jl.toonzone.net/shade/shade.htm

I don't know if The Shade ever showed up in the comics, but this guy has Dark Defender written all over him.



Remember, we're talking about core strategies here.  The nature of a character's powers don't necessarily imply virtue or sin as do fantasy staples such as Paladins and Clerics.  Philosophically, you can still be a villain with the ultimate goal of healing (such as Dr. Vahzilok, who is trying to overcome death).  Strategically, there's no reason a group of villains wouldn't want someone around to keep their asses as free of bullet holes as possible.

And let's not forget, CoH Defenders aren't necessarily healers.  Their role is utility.  Radiation Defenders don't have a lot of healing, but they're still pretty damn useful.

I really do think the Stalker will be scrapper-like.

One thing I'm really curious about- how will epic archetypes translate?  We've got at least 2 more on the way for heroes; will warshades/peacebringers be able to be villains, will there be an equivalent right off the bat, or are villains just going to get these 4 at release?

Now, for my wild and unsubstantiated theory-
Controllers are being merged with Defenders.  Defender powersets have wild variation from one to the other of exactly what role they play, while Controllers all play the same role in slightly different ways.  Illusion's light on control with a bit more damage, Earth has a lot of control with decent damage, Mind has tons of control with not much damage, but that's about it.  They all have their AE holds, they all have their single holds.  They all do the same stuff, just in slightly different ways.  The end goal is that they protect the team and let them operate more efficiently by keeping enemies locked down.  But really, that's what Defenders do- they protect the team and let them operate more efficiently.  As much as I love Controllers, the core design behind them could be merged with Defenders.

So if anyone's getting cut, I'd say it's Controllers.  The powers will still be available, but all in one archetype.  Hell, make a storm/dark defender and you're practically a controller anyway.  You'll have knockbacks, 2 AE disorients, a cone root, and a pet.

I guess the /real/ reason Controllers are separate is because of the secondary powerset choice.  Defenders are hybrids, Controllers are pure support.  Same thing that makes Blasters and Scrappers different- both of them deal in damage, but Scrappers get defense while Blasters get a little utility.

[Mesozoic]

They're screwed either way.  If the CoV ATs map onto the CoH ATs directly, people will complain that the villains are just like the heroes.  If they don't directly correlate, then players of AT "X" will complain that they can't make an evil version of their main.

Of course if CoV allows heroes to go bad, then they would be covered there.  Its odd that they haven't come to a conclusion as to if/how to do this, because it would seem to have large ramifications for possible villain ATs and powersets.  No reason to make an evil copy of a scrapper AT it actual scrappers can just go evil.

I guess ideally, villains would have been available at release, and every AT could simply decide to go good or bad.  Oh well.

[eldaec]

So if anyone's getting cut, I'd say it's Controllers.  

You might be right, espeicially since any well organised team is impossible to apply cc to.

Mastermind being primary buff/debuff, secondary pets and a little control for pve would make sense in an environment where a large portion of characters will be deisgned from the ground up for pvp.

[Mesozoic]

Here's a good CoV info source if you haven't seen it yet.

[stray]

I can tell you that we hired Dave ‘Zeb’ Cook, author of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and creator of the famous Planescape campaign setting, to be the City of Villains senior designer.

Well...That's encouraging. At least on the PvE side of things.

[Murgos]

I can tell you that we hired Dave ‘Zeb’ Cook, author of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and creator of the famous Planescape campaign setting, to be the City of Villains senior designer.

Cool

[schild]

I'd rather Zeb buy the rights to planescape and make an mmorpg in the world of doors.

Of course, I just can't have nice things.