Author Topic: Power Sets Organized by Theme?  (Read 5899 times)

Felderburg

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Power Sets Organized by Theme?
« on: May 21, 2014, 10:14:07 PM »
So I was looking at some stuff, and realized that there doesn't seem to be a place where power sets are grouped by "theme" - e.g. Fire, Ice, Darkness. Would it be beneficial to create a page with some tables, that had something like an "elemental" table, with fire, ice, earth, etc. below it, and they would each list the power sets that use those powers? Or a "weapons" table, with ranged & melee below it, listing things like Katana, Archery, etc.?

If that's not ideal, it might also be nice to create categories - put all the Electrical sets in a new "Electrical Power Sets" category, for example?

Edit: Page created here: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Power_Set_Themes
« Last Edit: June 10, 2014, 10:20:17 PM by Felderburg »
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Blondeshell

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Re: Power Sets Organized by Theme?
« Reply #1 on: June 07, 2014, 05:14:06 PM »
I'm a sucker for lists that organize information differently than what's currently available, so I give a thumbs-up vote for this idea. I think a page with different tables would be preferential to separate categories, possibly with columns for each theme as it relates to Armor, Ranged, Support, Control, and Epic power sets.

Blondeshell

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Re: Power Sets Organized by Theme?
« Reply #2 on: June 10, 2014, 02:18:02 AM »
One thought after seeing your Google Docs draft design is that it might be easier to read and manage the tables if you flip the axes, putting the armor, ranged, etc., as the columns instead. It'd definitely be more display-friendly for smaller monitors that way. Otherwise, I think you're off to a good start.

Felderburg

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Re: Power Sets Organized by Theme?
« Reply #3 on: June 10, 2014, 03:28:20 PM »
Brilliant!
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Felderburg

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Re: Power Sets Organized by Theme?
« Reply #4 on: June 10, 2014, 04:23:31 PM »
Made the table, now I just need to categorize the sets. I'm sort of surprised something like this was never put together. I do want feedback on the potential organization before I actually populate the table.

I don't know how MM sets will make it onto the list, since they're sort of... different. One problem is that a set like Beast Mastery fits in the "nature" category, but a set like Robots... doesn't really fit anywhere. I guess they could be an "item", but then what about Thugs? Ninjas could sort of fit in the "honed body" category with other martial arts style sets, but Thugs don't really go anywhere. But the main problem with MM sets is that they don't necessarily fit in the "ranged, melee, support, etc." system. I guess I could make them "support", and just fit them as appropriate...?



The traditional elements are Earth, Fire, Wind, & Water as of right now. The question: should I rename "Healing" to "Heart" and put it up there with them?
I used CIT before they even joined the Titan network! But then I left for a long ol' time, and came back. Now I edit the wiki.

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Sekoia

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Re: Power Sets Organized by Theme?
« Reply #5 on: June 10, 2014, 05:50:50 PM »
I don't think you need to try to force every set into a slot in the table. Some sets may not fit anywhere and that's fine. And some sets may fit in multiple places. If you try to coerce all the sets into a neat "every set has a single spot in the table" paradigm, you'll probably hinder the utility of the table because the sets weren't designed with that kind of perspective. Maybe add a bullet list after the table of sets that didn't really fit anywhere.

I wouldn't change Healing to Heart. Healing is more accurate. Heart sounds like you're drawing on Captain Planet. :) I'm not sure a Healing category is even appropriate though, since there's really only two Healing-focused sets (Empathy and Pain Domination) and both of them are more psychic themed than healing themed, I think.

I think the best thing to do is just populate it as well as you can, even if it's not perfect. Once the data's all there, patterns may be easier to see and improvements may make themselves more readily apparent.

LadyShin

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Re: Power Sets Organized by Theme?
« Reply #6 on: June 10, 2014, 06:47:21 PM »
Maybe...Something like....Scrapper..Tank...Blaster...Gunslinger...

Meta...Magical...Divine....Tech...

Meta scrapper....Wolverine.

Divine scrapper.... Thor.

Meta Tank....Hulk.

Tech Blaster... Iron Man.


Magical Scrapper... Zatanna.


Just throwing things out there  8)  ;)
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Aggelakis

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Re: Power Sets Organized by Theme?
« Reply #7 on: June 10, 2014, 08:43:21 PM »
This thread is about organizing City of Heroes' powersets. None of those apply.
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Felderburg

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Re: Power Sets Organized by Theme?
« Reply #8 on: June 10, 2014, 09:25:46 PM »
I don't think you need to try to force every set into a slot in the table. Some sets may not fit anywhere and that's fine. And some sets may fit in multiple places.

That was my thinking. I've already seen a few sets that will fit in multiple places. The motivation here was looking at I think a ranged Ice power set, and wanting to quickly jump from it to the equivalent melee set (or something like that) and realizing that there was no place where sets were gathered by theme. That's the usefulness of this article now - I suppose if the game was going, people might say: "I want to make a character using only Dark powers! What are available to me...?" and go here (or maybe not, since there obviously wasn't demand for it before).

Heart sounds like you're drawing on Captain Planet. :)

Hey, you got it!

I was thinking about a "Healing" category because Regen seemed to fit there along with Empathy, Pain Domination... uh, maybe that was it. Thermal Radiation? Hmm. How many sets need to be in a theme before it becomes non-useful?



Regarding your comment, LadyShin: I don't want to categorize things by something like "Magic" or "Tech", since those are origins, and one of the great things about CoH was that any power set could be used by any origin. Yes, some power sets sort of lend themselves to one origin or another (spines + mutation = happy fun times?) but other than the new power pools like Sorcery or Gadgetry, none were explicitly scientific, or magical, or what have you.
I used CIT before they even joined the Titan network! But then I left for a long ol' time, and came back. Now I edit the wiki.

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Sekoia

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Re: Power Sets Organized by Theme?
« Reply #9 on: June 10, 2014, 10:45:12 PM »
I can't believe I didn't think of Regeneration... you're absolutely right, that's healing. I'm not sure about Thermal, since healing isn't its focus, it's just an aspect of the set. You're starting down a slippery slope there. How much healing does a set need to provide in order to qualify? Many, many sets have powers that heal or provide regen.