POWERS IN THIS GAME SCALE INDEPENDANT OF THE PLAYER, NOT ONLY BETWEEN LEVELS, BUT WITHIN LEVELS. PHOSPHOR GAMES PROJECT AWAKEN WAS ON THE VERGE OF DEMOING THIS, AS WELL AS THE SENSE OF SCALE AND DESTRUCTIVENESS, ON THE UNREAL 3 ENGINE.
The environment is the unseen third player in the game.
The game world is expansive having everything from bustling cityscapes, to dense jungles, to desert landscapes. Players will find themselves anywhere from the ocean depths, to the weightlessness of outer space.
The player will always have to factor in the environment they find themselves in as part of their combat strategy. An ice-based character will receive a very slight buff to secondary effects in polar zones and areas, but may receive a very slight debuff in a desert zone. Visual cues will show a player that their character is in an environment that is advantageous to their base powers. These cues are purely cosmetic, such as brighter lightning flashes for storm and electricity powers during light storms, or larger water effects when underwater.
The open world will be filled with destructible objects of various weights that any character can lift and/or throw. Anything from mailboxes, crates, to boulders and trucks can be “weaponized”, with varying efficiency based on the strength of the character and the weight of the object. Splash damage will reflect battles in the open zones, such as cracked pavement and walls, shattered windows in buildings, or scorched trees and earth. This added to the remains of destroyed objects will give the player the feel of how destructive their powers are. Zone resets will clean up the mess left by open battles, but bigger battles will be talked about by NPCs whenever a player is near.
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Character Power / Temp Power
Completely naked, Thor has super strength and invulnerability. These are his basic powers, brawl and invulnerability. Add the temp power “Belt of Power” and this doubles the strength of his melee attacks and his lift ability. This is a single-modifier temp power. Now we add the hammer Mjolnir, when wielded, it replaces Thor’s brawl with a hammer strike and replaces throw with a hammer throw. Any hand-held weapon will replace either brawl, throw, or both.
Temp powers function similarly to character powers where basic abilities can be crafted for added effect. In the case of Mjolnir, minor weather control and electricity projection are added to hammer strike and hammer throw. Finally, flight is added to Thor’s character abilities along with the familiar custom flight pose exclusive to Thor as an NPC.
Every character, whether player or non-player, follows this basic formula. There is no character in the Marvel Universe that can’t be created this way, but it’s up to the player to find out what slate of powers he’s up against. Temp powers can give the player a wide variety of added abilities and can gain experience (and power) independent of the player. The catch is that temp power weapons can be destroyed, mystical spells can expire, and mutations can fade. As temp powers level independent of the player, it becomes important how much xp is applied to the player and how much to the temp power.
Your Powers Your Way
Your “Basic Build” or your “Naked Build” is the first powerset you configure in the creation tool. Although there are a vast number of possibilities in how to design your powers, one thing to keep in mind will be your personal play-style. Are you a “soloist” or “team player”, do you wish to master a single ability of have a bit of everything? There is no right or wrong way to play!
POWER MANAGMENT
Managing your powers is a skill all its own! For example, to calculate a character’s DPS (Damage Per Second), one must assume a percentage, with max sliders and max level, distribution of 50-30-20.
50% – Primary Attach
30% – Secondary Attack
20% – Passive Modifier
This means, for a character to do 100% Energy damage for a “Hero” level, he would have to slot energy as his primary and secondary attack powers, with an energy boosting passive power.
Strength Slider – The Strength Slider allows the player to adjust the amount of force to apply to a particular power based on the amount of experience points (XP) that power has at that character’s level.
Why would you want to do less than max force for your power?
The more force behind your attacks, the more endurance they burn and the slower they recharge. Managing the strength of your attacks mean you can stay in the fight longer.
Leveling – Individual powers can be leveled without the character itself being considered “Leveled”, but that only extends 10% above the characters current level. Not until the character is leveled (primary, secondary, attack, defense) can individual powers continue to increase.
Techniques – Your “Powers” are the aspects of your character that make you super, but your “Techniques” are how you use them. It is your techniques that gain XP toward leveling its corresponding power. Each power can slot three techniques per level. The number of techniques you can slot accumulate as you level. A player can learn a new technique by training at their assigned hero or villain training facility, but new techniques must be used to mature their XP.
THE ATTRIBUTES
Some powers fire off like a trigger, some activate like a light switch, and other are always on. The constantly active powers are called “Attributes”. Attributes can either be offensive, defensive, active or passive, but the one thing they have in common is that they constantly consume endurance, but at a lower rate than trigger or switch powers. One such attribute is Super Strength.
The current list of attributes includes:
Super Strength – Strength vs Endurance
Invulnerability – Damage resistance vs Endurance
Regeneration (Healing Factor) – Healing vs Endurance
Agility – Movement vs Endurance
Super Senses – Awareness vs Endurance
