While playing our beloved game I have noticed a lot of discussion on many chats about caps (IE taunting cap, damage cap) and from personal experience with the game, I found it obvious that specific archetypes have roles like how Tanks/Brutes take on the role of absorbing damage for the team or like how a Blaster/Scrapper tend to be the damage dealer. As these topics continued to fester in my mind I was brought to light about the most recent patch notes on writing this threat (1/23/2020) involving Tankers and Brutes with their inherited powers.
So, all of this brought forth this most resent draft of my idea, a leveling system for inherited powers. Now, you may be quick to jump to question: Why change the inherited power pools again right as they just got an update? Well, the short answer is that it will affect inherited powers for ALL archetypes. This can be done in a wide variety of ways of course, the sky's the limit, but for now, I am just introducing a theory of how this could all be done with a little bit of observation and evidence to back it all up.
Lets break it all down bit by bit:
How could we possibly modify the inherited powers into a leveling/progression system?
Personally, I do not know the nuts and bolts of how the game operates but I have a good understanding of processes and methods of approaching problems in a technical manner by using tools and previous works as a road map or a guide. This being said, since there are obvious leveling/progression systems already in the game, it's very trivial to come up with many method to approach a leveling/progression system.
As mentioned previously, these are simply theory so here is one way that could be approachable. A merit system with an award scheme similar to Architect Entertainment tickets. Do not be alarmed, this process is entirely different and very distant from anything involving AE (I'm talking about you fire farmers). Lets call these merits Veteran Merits for simplicity's sake. These merits could be awarded via the defeat of enemies at levels where you could also gain experience and scalable to how many you earn in a similar way to experience. For example, if you are the same level as an enemy you defeated, you earn 5 Veteran Merits but if you defeat a enemy 2 levels below you, you only earn 2.
How do we earn Veteran Merits?
Again, many ways to approach it but in a mindset of the game, as a hero/villain your character gets stronger the more they defeat/do, right? So these merits act similar to influence/infamy where the accumulate as you do more like defeat enemies and complete missions/task forces.
Implementing this merit system may or may not be difficult, that is not my call but it is definitely possible through observation of AE tickets and Empyrean/Astral Merits so there is already a system available to potentially replicate.
What do we do with these merits?
Simply put, you turn them in for a reward just like every other merit system. But the difference is what the reward is. Lets start with an example: You recently accumulated 50 Veteran Merits on your Blaster, enough to turn in to a contact for the reward. At this contact vendor you can select from a variety of rewards using these merits, including but not limited to:
Increased Damage Bonus
Increased Range
Increased Max HP
Increased Recovery
Increased Status Resistances etc.
All of these bonus can be incorporated into an inherited power for that Blaster, permanent stat increase that characters are awarded as they progress in the game.
They can even be scaled to where if you increase your damage bonus on your Blaster, in order to increase it again you need to turn in 60 Veteran Merits to incorporate longevity.
How much will they increase the character's statuses? Won't we just get more "godly" characters?
Obviously they wont increase statuses too much to avoid modifying enemy scaling changes which will just involve more headache, but enough to show at least a little bit of an improvement.
These boosts also promote variety in character game play, improve on weaknesses just slightly or strengths.
How often and how many times will we get these boosts?
Now we are getting into balance and quality of game play questions, there is no clear answer because this process will take time to balance and doing some number crunching to make sure nothing breaks, but to point out some obvious points to the question, there will definitely be a limit but enough to keep people improving their max leveled characters even after the incarnate goodies.
You showed a simple example for Blasters, what other bonuses can be applicable?
Obviously there are the simple status changes like damage, health, recovery, status resistances but there are other game play styles to appeal to as well like Tankers where it could be possible to increase the maximum number of enemies they can taunt, increased duration on a Controller's holds, increased healing from Defenders, increased critical damage from stalkers, increased debuff duration or strength from Corruptors, increased pet health for Masterminds, and even special archetypes like Peacebringers and Warshades can have bonus status for their specific forms (Human, White/Black Dwaf, etc).
The options are almost limitless and that's the beauty of this idea, you can focus on your strengths or weakness, create new methods of playing the game.
Hopefully I've answered a majority of questions and/or concerns when describing this idea but nevertheless, it's only an idea and the only way to answer more questions is to be active with inquiring with you all about this potential game changer. I've put a lot of thought to how to improve the game that I've grown up on and I would love to hear feedback from people who also love this game and community. I hope to see you all out there online. Thank you for your time.
- @Ephah Aka Captain Star
