Post by Rodimus Prime on Dec 17, 2007 21:10:01 GMT -5
From the very beginning, our wiki has stated, "You may start with a very powerful character (Jhiaxus, a Prime, a 'tron, etc.), but if you want any further powerful characters, you will also have to app a low-powered or normal-powered character. These normal or low-powered characters must be kept as active as your more powerful characters, if not more so." One thing we've done a rather poor job at describing, however, is just what qualifies as a High Power character. After all, the examples listed aren't just high... they're extremely high. A character can fall well short of those levels and still have a rather significant impact on the game battle-field. Besides that, we would certainly not want to see Primes, 'Trons, etc, make up half the characters in our game.
The benchmark this game is using for how a character qualifies as 'high' based on Stats alone, with no special abilities to affect matters, is Kup. He is the lowest power level a character can be to still be considered 'high' if they have no special abilities boosting them up. If you'll look at Kup's wiki entry, you can see that he has no stats at the highest level (5), three out of nine stats (all physically oriented) at the second highest level (4), and seven out of nine stats at 3 or higher. A character with stats at a more or less comparable level or higher, particularly if they are statistics directly relevant to combat, will generally be considered High Powered.
Having Firepower at the 5 level (City Buster) automatically qualifies any character for High Power.
Having either Armor or Toughness at the 5 level (Unbreakable) indicates a very strong likelihood the character will be flagged as High Power. Having both at that level usually means you're a Dinobot, Prime, or similar.
Special weapons: Most weapons that do nothing more than deal damage to a single target will not affect a character's power level, neither will having a longer list of weapons. Essentially, all you're doing is listing the different ways your character can make use of their Firepower level, which is considered when stats are being considered. If a weapon has a significant special effect or can affect many people at once, however, it will be considered. For example, once Needlenose is no longer an Actionmaster, he will no longer have level 5 (City Buster) firepower. However, Sunbeam still blinds all characters around him who are not shielded against the frequency of light he's using. Therefore he still makes the cut as a "High" power character. Most weapons that add up to, "Battle's over, I win," if they hit also pushes a character up to "High Power." Starscream's Null Ray counts here, as does Needlenose's Zigzag (although, let's face it, Zigzag's usually not going to hit).
Special defensive abilities: What this means are defensive abilities that severely restrict or limit the ability of a significant portion of the other characters in the game to even do damage to your character. For example, Screwdriver's ability to pick herself back up after anything marks her as a high power character, despite being only moderate offensively (does this mean that all Junkions are "High Power" characters? Yes, actually). Dead End... actually meanders in and out of "High Power" based on how well his force field is operating at the moment, but when he's not broken, he's also High Power due to the fact that the majority of characters in play can't actually damage him.
Other Special Abilities: Here we're talking about things that can make a significant impact on a large number of characters on a battlefield. Shrapnel, for example, can take control of other characters (which is the sort of ability that's going to get looked closely at under any circumstances, anyway), and make large numbers of clones of himself. With the clones, he can keep an entire field of Autobots (or Decepticons, for that matter) busy.
As it stands, this is the list of characters currently in the game that are considered "High Power":
Omega Supreme (City Buster, stats), Kup (stats), Screwdriver (Recovery ability), Grimlock (stats), Rodimus Prime (stats, can attack many targets at once, McGuffin), Pee-Dee (Recovery ability), Dead End (force field), Starscream (stats, Null Ray), Demolishor (stats), Shrapnel (cloning, electronics control), Sky-Byte (stats), Needlenose (Sunbeam and Zigzag), Hellbender (stats), Shockwave (stats), Scourge (stats, can attack many targets at once), Botanica (multiple-target attack)
The benchmark this game is using for how a character qualifies as 'high' based on Stats alone, with no special abilities to affect matters, is Kup. He is the lowest power level a character can be to still be considered 'high' if they have no special abilities boosting them up. If you'll look at Kup's wiki entry, you can see that he has no stats at the highest level (5), three out of nine stats (all physically oriented) at the second highest level (4), and seven out of nine stats at 3 or higher. A character with stats at a more or less comparable level or higher, particularly if they are statistics directly relevant to combat, will generally be considered High Powered.
Having Firepower at the 5 level (City Buster) automatically qualifies any character for High Power.
Having either Armor or Toughness at the 5 level (Unbreakable) indicates a very strong likelihood the character will be flagged as High Power. Having both at that level usually means you're a Dinobot, Prime, or similar.
Special weapons: Most weapons that do nothing more than deal damage to a single target will not affect a character's power level, neither will having a longer list of weapons. Essentially, all you're doing is listing the different ways your character can make use of their Firepower level, which is considered when stats are being considered. If a weapon has a significant special effect or can affect many people at once, however, it will be considered. For example, once Needlenose is no longer an Actionmaster, he will no longer have level 5 (City Buster) firepower. However, Sunbeam still blinds all characters around him who are not shielded against the frequency of light he's using. Therefore he still makes the cut as a "High" power character. Most weapons that add up to, "Battle's over, I win," if they hit also pushes a character up to "High Power." Starscream's Null Ray counts here, as does Needlenose's Zigzag (although, let's face it, Zigzag's usually not going to hit).
Special defensive abilities: What this means are defensive abilities that severely restrict or limit the ability of a significant portion of the other characters in the game to even do damage to your character. For example, Screwdriver's ability to pick herself back up after anything marks her as a high power character, despite being only moderate offensively (does this mean that all Junkions are "High Power" characters? Yes, actually). Dead End... actually meanders in and out of "High Power" based on how well his force field is operating at the moment, but when he's not broken, he's also High Power due to the fact that the majority of characters in play can't actually damage him.
Other Special Abilities: Here we're talking about things that can make a significant impact on a large number of characters on a battlefield. Shrapnel, for example, can take control of other characters (which is the sort of ability that's going to get looked closely at under any circumstances, anyway), and make large numbers of clones of himself. With the clones, he can keep an entire field of Autobots (or Decepticons, for that matter) busy.
As it stands, this is the list of characters currently in the game that are considered "High Power":
Omega Supreme (City Buster, stats), Kup (stats), Screwdriver (Recovery ability), Grimlock (stats), Rodimus Prime (stats, can attack many targets at once, McGuffin), Pee-Dee (Recovery ability), Dead End (force field), Starscream (stats, Null Ray), Demolishor (stats), Shrapnel (cloning, electronics control), Sky-Byte (stats), Needlenose (Sunbeam and Zigzag), Hellbender (stats), Shockwave (stats), Scourge (stats, can attack many targets at once), Botanica (multiple-target attack)