Alchemystic

Again, nothing about the missions would have changed save for the entry point and one or two lines of dialogue.

All Snipe powers, most of the Pool Powers and Blaster Secondaries, as well as a handful of other powers like Repulse, Dimension Shift and Total Focus. Now, if you want examples of how Homecoming has broken the cottage rule; pretty much ALL pool powers are getting a revamp, as well as some bigger changes to melee, armor and manipulation sets, all of which dont adhere to the cottage rule. And if that wasn't enough, there's so much discussion about changing powers like Serum and Twilight Grasp, or entire powersets like Regeneration and Stone Armor, or even broad mechanics like sleep and confuse. The cottage rule is ancient history, and I wouldn't put too much stock in Castle either, most of the new powersets came before or after his time with Paragon Studios... food for thought.

Gonna attempt to make another Mastermind Primary set, using only material we have in the game already. I even made a few concepts for what their attire could look like just to try and flesh it out some more. One of the most popular ideas for new MM primaries was 'knights', so I'm going to try and take that and work it into the thread here, and see how it might look on paper. (I'm also going to make a few adjustments to Ninjas, since I'm stealing Archery powers from them). Feudalism - Snap Shot: Stealing this power from Ninjas, and replacing it with 'Shuriken' which is more fitting. - Call Archers: Summons 3 Archers, which are ranged pets armed with a few archery powers. - Aimed Shot: Stealing this power from Ninjas, and replacing it with 'Poison Dart' which is more fitting. - Train Warriors: First upgrade power, the animation for this features the player using a ceremonial sword and the 'Summon Spiderbot' animation from Mace Mastery - Fistful of Arrows: Stealing this power from Ninjas, and replacing it with 'Explosive Shuriken' which is more fitting. - Call Champions: Summons two Champions, each wielding a shield, one with a sword and one with a mace. - Siege: A special power that imbues a warrior with a single-use attack that they will use immediately on the target they're focusing on. Animation is similar to 'Call Hawk' - Call Crusader: Summons one extremely powerful Crusader, who uses a Titan Weapon and can gain/lose Momentum. - Knighthood: Second upgrade power, the animation for this features the player using a ceremonial sword and the 'Point Sword' NPC animation before returning to holding it in both hands. - Archer Base Powers: - Brawl, - Snap Shot, - Armor (Inherent S/L defense) Trained Powers: - Aimed Shot Knighthood Powers: - Fistful of Arrows Siege Power: - Rain of Arrows - Champion Base Powers: - Slash/Bash, - Hack/Clobber, - Net, - Shield (Inherent S/L and Melee defense) Trained Powers: - Disembowel/Jawbreaker, - Javelin, - Grant Cover Knighthood Powers: - Headsplitter/Shatter, - Phalanx Fighting Siege Power: - Shield Charge - Crusader Base Powers: - Crushing Blow, - Defensive Sweep, - Heavy Armor (Inherent S/L and Positional Defense) Trained Powers: - Titan Sweep, - Follow Through, - Rend Armor Knighthood Powers: - Whirling Smash, - Arc of Destruction Siege Power: - Catapult (extreme Smash/Fire Targeted AoE with Stun/Knockback, visually identical to Meteor)

NPCs get displaced. Look at Dark Astoria, or Galaxy City, or even as far back as the Rikti Crash Site. That's how stories progress. Things change, events unfold, nothing remains exactly the same. Stephanie can disappear to Striga for a while and only be reached by phone, which happens to a few NPCs already when they introduced player instancing. At least I'm proposing to make alterations to these stories instead of locking them behind orouboros or removing them completely. I didn't want to do them a disservice like that. Heroes also can't enter the Rogue Isles, but plenty of missions take place there, often in instanced outdoor maps. So I really don't see how this is a problem? This also circles back to the point I made about moving mission doors to helicopters or other suitable transport. Vehicles and portals make for an easy narrative reason for why you go from once place to another, and it can feasibly be applied here. I never said that I was going to revamp it strictly in the same way as Faultline or The Hollows now did I? And besides, Dark Astoria and the RWZ aren't even 'Hazard Zones' anymore, their maps have been entirely repurposed, which is what I'm proposing. Also, the zone wont be deleted from a hero perspective, I already stated that it will exist as an Echo map. The content will move, but it will still exist, so let's not pretend this is Galaxy City 2.0. Either way, this is a thread about the evolution of the game, so I don't see what you have to gain here by being obstructive. Your feedback's been noted but I don't see anything that I can really take as constructive criticism.

The arcs wouldn't be affected. Any mission that takes place in Striga will still take place in Striga, the access point for missions will just change (often to a helicopter that will take you to Striga, or if it's a random base, Boomtown doors work). So, nothing is "taken away". I'll agree that there will be a little rewriting needed, likely to make sure that dialogue indicates that the contact is in Boomtown instead of Striga, but as for the events of the missions, nothing should need amendment. Revamping the Hazard Zones was always the plan, moving forward sometimes means closing a chapter on something, and the new content introduced that's centred around Striga is a strong starting point for something like this.

Cottage rule is moot. Castle isn't part of Homecoming, hell, he wasn't even part of Paragon Studios in the later years.

One of the ideas I had a while back was to repurpose Striga Isle into a villain zone, and moving all contacts from the map to Boomtown, and the doors to their missions would be replaced with a helicopter (or if suitable, moved to locations in Boomtown). I know Striga Isles isn't in the Rogue Isles, but it's technically not in Paragon City either, and I feel as though it would make sense for Arachnos to make a move on it and secure it for villains properly. Then, the narrative of the relationship between the 5th Column, Council, and UPA can be further explored by a suite of new contacts with interesting backstories and story arcs, as well as showcasing what the Banished Pantheon are doing after their defeat in Dark Astoria. In order to get there, you can take a black helicopter to a newly created Arachnos seabase off the coast of the islands, where villains will be briefed on the events taking place in the island. You can also access the zone via submarines, including the one in Paragon (Though now only available to Rogues and Vigilantes). There will be new exploration and history badges created to narrate the more recent events surrounding Striga Isle and its inhabitants. Other than that, not much of the map or the enemy activity would have changed. For heroes, they will still be able to access an Echo version of Striga Isle wih all the old badges still available to them. To make up for the fact they are losing direct access to the 'Mortician' day job, a new cemetery will be created nearby the tunnel connecting Perez and Galaxy City, mourning those lost in the Shivan attack. The mission arcs and task forces that were once available in Striga Isle will still be accessible, just from Boomtown, so not much there would have changed besides location. All in all, I think this accomplishes a great many things; Revamps a Hazard Zone, which was the original plan of Paragon Studios. Creates a new villain zone, since redside is lacking. Integrates existing narratives from story arcs into the world. Finally allows villains to explore relations with 5th Column and Council. Villains can also experience the UPA for the first time. Moves the hero side Council narrative to Boomtown, where it is currently being staged. Doesn't require much in the way of new environmental assets/map designing. More space for newly created contacts/mission arcs. Added bonus of a memorial for Galaxy City. Other possibilities; Making it a level 40-50 zone, and introducing a Warrior revamp to match this UPA spawns added to the map Zone event; 5th Column vs Council Room for Nictus themed content More direct conflict with heroes

Agreed, Ablative Carapace feels so out of place when using MinFX, I wouldn't mind if it had similar visuals so that armor didnt appear. Since it's always going to play that shell-crack sound effect, maybe keeping the burst of debris would keep it cohesive.

Judging by how Interface Incarnate Powers work, it may be possible to add auras/FX onto enemies with regular attacks, but I'm unsure how possible it is to recreate that sort of effect for purely cosmetic purposes. If it can be done, I'm all for it, having more customisation options is always good, and I'd love to see more of it for powers too!

To be honest, a powerset with the ability to boost MaxHP or healing received will benefit more from Absorb than most other powersets, so I think it would be a missed opportunity to leave Absorb out of these proposed Regeneration changes.

Gotta say, I enjoy the idea of somebody proposing a difficulty tweak that's entirely optional instead of insisting the game has to function one way or another, it's a breath of fresh air. I agree with your point that the game was built entirely around SOs, and has been maintained in such a way that it can be continued to be played like that. However, I think content such as trials, task forces and incarnate level arcs should be exempt from this, since they have their own set of challenges that usually require you to be at your best in order to tackle them. (I'm sure theres exceptions, like low level TFs, but by then you wouldn't be fully built anyway). But, overall I think it's a great way to introduce challenge to the game, where previously having to run at lower levels was the only way to reclaim that sort of experience. (that, or run AEs specifically designed to be difficult).

Physical asymmetry would also be great! So far we can't really do much with the sliders to influence the arms separately to the rest of the body, so that may need to be addressed first. But, if something like that does get implemented, then I imagine being able to set the scales on arms individually wouldn't be too much to ask.

Now that we have asymmetrical gloves, boots and shoulders, is there any possibility of extending the same customisation to jackets and robes, as well as being able to have large robotic arms on either/both sides of your character? And if that can be done, perhaps the ability to add robotic arm options onto jackets and robes too? I'd love to see more diversity in the ways we can customise our characters with the costume pieces we already have. One similar note, can wings potentially have asymmetrical options too? I'm unsure if it will actually work given that some of them have different animations, or if the animations can support this sort of change in general. Either way, more asymmetry please! 😄

I'd totally be up for having the resistance/loyalist titles ported over to primal search characters somehow, rolling them into the vigilante/rogue alignments would be a cool way of going about it. I'm not against the idea of custom titles, but from what I remember that's what yellow titles were for, so maybe we could just customise our own yellow titles if the code behind regular titles wont allow for custom text.

I think @arcane summed it up in a concise and straightforward way.👍 And thank you to the GMs who managed to clean up problematic posts and keep things on topic as usual. 🙂

I like the look of most of these powersets, I think we totally need a sort of 'light' theme to counter the dark. That being said, I think perhaps avoiding things like 'holy' and other religious connotations might be best here. Not that I find the idea contentious, but more so that focusing a bit too hard on that aspect means that there's fewer hooks players can make use of. If it was 'light blast' or 'light armor' and such, I can see more opportunities to use this set across different characters. 🙂

I'd love this! there's so many walking styles in game that would be perfect. I'd also like to see the addition of 'walk emotes' if such a thing is possible, like when you see NPCs carrying objects or walking in curious animation cycles.

I addressed this already; In order to properly calculate formulaic/multiplicative bonuses, ALL powers have to be considered at the same time to determine the correct final result. So no, it's not easy to do.

Actually, I can't. Mids uses a long string of formulas and equations, accounting for exceptions, rules, limitations, and other sequences that are all managed by a system designed to run it. That isn't math, that's code.

Um that doesn't work, because ALL powers have to be considered in order to correctly calculate multiplicative/formulaic bonuses.

I struggle to believe that there are 4 pages on this thread and there is no evidence being presented, I even made a post on this very same page providing my own. So far, you've only been dismissive of other people's arguments and made attempts to twist logic to suit yourself, I don't think there's much anyone else can do to help you understand... because you simply choose not to.

Really now? you can't honestly call somebody's argument 'lame', or attack their character, and then expect people to treat you amicably. You're the instigator here (yet again). Anyway, to continue my point since you missed it; lets say I picked all the best powers from 4 different pools, I would presumably be quite effective, yes? So, if I were to venture into a 5th or 6th pool, my effectiveness would surge, so much so that the current content of the game would no longer pose a challenge. There are many people who already say that it is already too easy to become overpowered, what this proposes is not to open up more options for "interesting builds", all it does is make it even more easy to achieve that state of being overpowered. Lets say I'm a little short of meeting defense softcap with Hover, Combat Jumping, Manuevers and Weave all slotted. I could then just go and pick up Stealth too, and there we have it, I don't have to play it clever, I can just hoard pool powers and achieve it easier and cheaper than before.

Only compromise I can see truly working out here is that if we maintain the standard limitation of 4 "standard" pools to choose from, and only one origin pool can be taken as usual, but the latter no longer contributes to your total. Origin pools are different enough in structure to the standard power pools that I feel there's at least some justification to moving them outside the standard limitations, and they don't exactly fill a niche like normal pool powers do, but I'm adamantly against having more than one origin pool accessible since they have a lot of overlap.

From what I understand, the added defense value isn't just to give it a little boost to its protective abilities, but to also make the powerset more competitive when it comes to slotting sets.

Good to know it's at least being looking into! 🙂