biostem

Any powerset that buffs or debuffs a character's "natural state" could be said to be "corrupting them"... Hell, it's like saying you won't ever play a stalker because stalking is a crime. Do you have a problem with playing a tanker, since the Exxon Valdez was a tanker, crashed, and leaked oil everywhere? It's a pretty important skill to be able to separate a label from its further implications, with regard to the names given to things in a fictional setting.

Just imagine that the bad guys are laughing so hard at the big ball of fire trying to sneak up on them that they're unable to fight back...

Just attack the center of the big smokey mass. Anyway, you can in fact have invisible fire, (I believe it's hydrogen that does that, or maybe some form of alcohol).

What would be interesting would be an AT whose inherent performed differently based upon their proximity to the enemy. For instance, imagine if you gained better defenses the closer you were to an enemy, by better damage the further away you were from them...

Now that's just iNsAnE!!

If the animation times are the same, then I don't see why you couldn't simply make all non-weapon animations available to all non-weapon attacks...

You could have the user hold a gem the size of the medicine device, or perhaps a magic tome/crystal skull/some other magic object. I'd love to see all psi-blade or all psi-fist options for psi melee. I'd like to see some of the elemental weapon models made available to the relevant fire & ice melee attacks. I'd like to see all beam rifle or assault rifle models shared among those sets. I'd like to see some sort of ethereal/psi/ghostly weapon models added for pistols & rifles. Not so much a power customization option per se, but I'd love to see some or all of the shield models ported over as back options.

Very clever! I remember reading about it some years back. Cheers!

Really clever! :-)

I so wish we could get this option ported over to all humanoid summons. Since MM ones are more complex, perhaps start with the phatasm, then dark servant. Jack frost and the earth pet are basically ice and stone armors without the person, IIRC, so maybe they could be included as well. I'm not sure if the same could be done for the fire imps, nightmares or gremlins, though...

Friendly/allied players need to either be able to pass through MM pets or to be able to push them with little effort.

I admit that not *all* of the powers are direct copies of kinetics ones, but you have ones that grant buffs kind of like what can be found in radiation, empathy, pain domination, and other such sets. The only one that stands out is the one that grants a power boost effect to your allies.

I may be misremembering, but I recall trying out a controller around CoH's launch, and just finding the experience horribly unfun; I would spam the immobilize and single target hold, in a vain effort to defeat minions, (this was before containment, IIRC).

The OP is basically touching on the dichotomy of building/developing/growing a new character vs playing a fully fleshed-out and realized one. Sure, there may be some comics out there that deal with Superman having to learn how to fly, use laser vision, freezing breath, or how to properly restrain his super strength, but those tend to be in the minority. People, (generally speaking), want to play a character with a full series of powers to tap into, who doesn't gasp for breath after taking out a couple of baddies, and who isn't missing all the time. Having gotten dozens of characters to 50 back when the game was live, (and very thankful for changes since then, like inherent fitness & early access to travel powers), I still find that it can be a slog in the "pre-SO/IO" levels, or when you don't have access to certain concept or powerset-defining powers. I'm not against the idea of making the lower levels more rewarding, per se... just that doing so would still likely be taken as "doing it for those rewards instead of genuinely wanting to play said lower levels".

I mean, kinetics kind of does this - you either boost your allies or simultaneously drain the enemy while boosting yourself & your allies. Besides containing a selection of buffs and debuffs, how would this set differ from any of the other sets that already do this?

I think it has to do with how white decals, (for lack of a better term), are applied to the various skin tones. If you go with a full face mask, then apply one of the domino mask-like patterns, it looks much better. Perhaps the best option would be to add a selection of mask options as face accessories, instead of said "decals"...

Well, what if the whole reason that they diverted the Nostromo to LV-426, instead of their own better suited vessel was because it would take decades to get one there, so it was stupendous luck that said ship was in the right place at the right time. Now, why they wouldn't immediately cordon off the crash site of the ship is another question. Again, we have little to work from, but W-Y certainly doesn't seem like a super efficient and intelligently run organization...

An interesting concept would be a degree of customization of the set. For instance, the default could be negative energy and toxic damage, which atrophies "the body" - so imparts a slow or similar affect. The set could then have a toggle that switches out the toxic damage for psionic, to reflect you atrophying the mind - perhaps imparting a -tohit or other debuff to go with the mental degeneration you are causing. Lastly, there could be a "spiritual decay" toggle that deals cold instead of the toxic or psionic, and imparts yet a different debuff...

So having gone through a bit of "heroes' block", I decided to create a character that I've never played before, and ended up rolling a poison/water defender. It seemed thematic, and is working out pretty well so far. Any thoughts or insights you folks may have? I'd love to hear your input! Thanks for reading.

Critical cinema theory and nuclear physics, of course!

Unless, of course, the whole purpose was to create a more comfortable "laboratory" in which to conduct your research; Just place it far away from the alien ship you're actually interested in, and make sure *not* to give out orders to investigate any areas that include said ship, (unless some overly ambitious middle-manager catches wind of it, who isn't in the loop, and does exactly that).

And that may have been the case for the first couple of decades on LV-426; We simply do not know what things were like in the early stages. Maybe once the air was breathable, and after decades in said habitats, people started getting stir crazy and opted to try their luck on the surface...

Granted, but what if the areas the squad went into were more akin to maintenance tunnels, where people were expected to wear protective clothing/suits, and the exterior of the building is where most of the shielding was? The door that they had to go though to bring in the APC seemed quite beefy, and since this wasn't exactly a war zone, I doubt you'd need such a sturdy structure unless it was part of the containment measures. The fact that they weren't even aware of where they were going until Ripley pointed it out could also explain why they weren't wearing said protective gear...

Weyland-Yutani didn't strike me as the kind of corporation that cared too much about the safety of their workers/employees. Another point of contention for me is that I don't buy that they would plop down a "shake and bake" facility/colony without a more thorough survey of the planet - The alien ship should have been fairly obvious if they had done it, which leads me to believe W-Y *did* know the ship was there, but probably were waiting for the colony to develop a bit more before sending someone to check out the ship - Burke likely upped their timetable. Even though it was stated that the environmental processor was "essentially a giant fusion reactor", my personal headcanon is that they still had a fission reactor to either supplement it, or perhaps it fused local elements as part of the terraforming process, and fission was still required for electricity and the like. *shrugs*

I would like to see some residential home maps and/or some sort of shopping mall ones. Maybe a map that took place inside a large train could be pretty cool, (though incorporating the roof/outside and how to handle falling off could be difficult).