Steampunkette

Redside needs more Hero Content. Blueside needs more Villain Content. In the Rogue Isles you are Recluse's plaything. That's the most you could ever aspire to because the Rogue Isles are his. He conquered them. You can't change that narrative, so any Supervillain who hangs out, there, is -going- to be Recluse's plaything. Hanging out in -his- sandbox. But over in Paragon? Over in Paragon you could be the Archvillain to the Freedom Phalanx! The NPCs are heroic so you could be an actual villain in relation to them! Just introduce contacts who are flunkies, spies, and minions and write the stories as though they're providing you with information about your rivals and enemies so you can go out and crush them... rather than people with their own motivations and goals that you are fulfilling.

Different sets have different costs. Look at the 3 sets with Click Mez Protection. All of them grant Positional or Vectored Defense. All of them grant protection to all three Vectors. Any control effect is going to be targeted. Generally from Range or Ranged AoE for soft-controls (Sleeps, Immobs, Fears, Confusions) and melee or ranged tossup for hard controls (Hold, Stun) You dodge most of them by rote. Especially once your Defense gets near, or to, Softcap. At that point you don't even really -need- mez protection that much. At that point I typically use my Mez Protection as a Break Free unless it's a Shield Defense character and then the Mez Protection provided Defense Debuff Resistance which I need. Are toggles more consistent? Arguably, sure. But clicks are more powerful in almost every respect and are tied to sets with more complete protection out of the box. Toggles? Typically used by Resistance-Centric powersets that get hit by EVERY MEZ because they don't have decent Defense out of the box. They need constant protection or they'd be screwed. Defense-Builds with all three vectors? Not so much.

Adding new powers to old style mobs involves altering their AI. Using AE Player-Created Mobs in the open world doesn't. Those mobs are based on a Templated AI tied to the powers that are granted to them. Like the powers you select in the AE? It's tied to them. To the magnitudes and recharge times in a priority chain. That said: It won't really increase the difficulty of the game at all. It will just add some new mobs to old villain groups like Arachnos's Praetorian Clockwork.

Every single suggestion (Other than the "Swap them with Supatrolls!" one) in this thread requires the creation of new NPCs, or an amount of work tantamount to that. NPCs don't have easily swappable powersets like players do. They've got a series of powers baked into a specific AI structure that gives them a priority of use and a priority of tactics before any given power is used. Things like "Before firing off Brawl, get in range to use Brawl". It seems simplistic, but... To add new powers means cracking open that AI and giving it a new priority of which powers to use, when to use them, and how they have to be used. Thankfully, there exists AI structures regarding Healing which could be co-opted to create a "Target weakened ally and activate power X which kills weakened ally and heals/empowers self". So that kind of thing would be possible? But it would also steal XP from players and if that target were to become confused, could kill player Teammates in order to self-empower. Nifty thought. But the "Get Larger" thing... that doesn't exist as a game-mechanic that can be utilized. They'd just get some buffs unless we created "Larger Models" for them to become, progressively. Things like the "Cyberwulf" have AI present in game to key off of (The Malta Titan Protocols) but no Model appropriate for that use. So that would need to be designed from the ground up, along with the power selection and AI required. All in all, though... This is not "Harder" or "Advanced" NPCs. It's just NPCs with new gimmicks and tricks. They wouldn't make fights any harder, they'd just shift around the target priority a bit, like fighting Nemesis soldiers and killing all the Minions and Bosses before the Lieutenants to avoid Veng-Stacking. In short, I don't think this is a particularly good idea. I would prefer to see this sort of effort moved into creating whole new villaingroups to fight. Perhaps harder "Incarnate" style groups, sure. But just more variety overall rather than a few new gimmicks in the old groups.

This is a more reasonable suggestion, by far. Turn the Upgrades into Autopowers that change the Power Call and create a separate power for each tier of minion. Sort of like Momentum and Titan Weapons. Technology that didn't exist when the MM Pets were being created. BUT. There's a lot of people who don't like putting the T3 upgrade on their Lich because it lowers the Lich's DPS in favor of more Control effects. Players who prefer that style would be SoL with this change.

Back when the Architect launched it was described as being the same system used to create in-game arcs with an interface that made things easier. In fact there was distinct mention by the devs that it would make content generation easier on -them- because they didn't have an interface before the ME was being constructed. So while I don't doubt that the mission mechanics are really awkward and hard, I think I'll trust the Live Devs that it'll be a lot easier going forward. Especially since two AE Arcs created by a community member now exist in the game world.

Some? I have a Necro, but if Thugs gets customization I might make a new Thugs Mastermind and play a Multiplier Punisher. And after checking the 4 Months in Stats thread, I'm suddenly thinking this will be -way- more popular than I initially considered. Mastermind is one of the 3 most popular archetypes which is a shock and a half, to me. But the 3 powersets that might get customization are also the least played three. Beasts, Demons, and Robots dominate.

Ehhhh... It's definitely a step in a good direction. It's just an incredibly time consuming step in a direction that affects few people... Not everyone plays MMs. Fewer still play Mercs, Thugs, and Ninjas (The only ones reasonably likely to get customization)

Oh, no doubt! I wholeheartedly and earnestly believe it's worth it. I'm just saying it's not the Easiest. It's not the Fastest. It's not the Best. It's time consuming and grueling for artists and designers... It's worth it... but hooooly crap is it intensive.

Fun as a Prime Directive is nice and all, in theory... but they've gotta balance a lot of different ideas of fun. Some people think PvP isn't fun unless they can just instantly win any PvP fight they get in because of superior power/numbers/etc. Some people think PvE isn't fun unless you completely ignore enemy attacks and crushes them without effort. But for every type of fun out there, there's someone else who has fun in the exact opposite way. Where every PvP match -needs- to have a risk of losing. Where Roflstomping enemies en-masse with no sense of danger is dull. How do you appease them all? Well. Some servers don't try. They hand out tier 9 powers at level 1 and let loose having a great time for them. And... honestly? I'd rather stay on the server that clings closest to what CoH was on Live. Because I loved that game. I love this one. We all did.

The Walk Powers were pretty resource intensive, honestly. Every time a new power is made with a new animation that animation has to be redone for two more models, 'cause they don't just "Share" by default. If they did, the Huge Body's Biceps might clip into their head on some of the powers that make the character raise their arm. Sharing every walk power across the models would be a pretty big undertaking.

Thank you, so much, for better encapsulating what I understood, but could not effectively communicate. I actually, earnestly, appreciate it. Fact is, someone could take that exact same build and instead of grabbing a Primary that drops Defense into one of it's attacks and instead just slot a few Kinetic Combats into their melee attacks to offset the lack of Melee defense, then use the rest of the same slotting strategy to get to softcap melee defense. All it really shows is that if someone is willing to spend 3 power pools on defenses and 30 million+ inf on IOs they can have good defenses regardless of their powersets. And combined with a defensive primary or secondary, the investment becomes even more effective. It's not really news, at that point. It's just noise.

Oh, you're right. It'll have 3-4 attack powers with, like, no slots to spend on them. Also this build is level 25, forgot to check the slot-levels on Gaussian's, so it'll have even -more- attacks, but absolutely no room to slot any of them 'cause of the entire focus on Defense. And will only have 22.5% Resistance to S/L for 10 minutes (or 18.75 for 7) 'cause you didn't save any slots to spend on that to make it recharge faster or get it's resistance levels up... Which... I dunno. Kind of undercuts the whole argument. Really, it seems like getting 8.75% defense from IOs and more from Weave/Maneuvers/Hover is the 'Real Problem' rather than the power itself.

That's cool and all, but it doesn't change the fact that powersets aren't balanced around IOs. Which is great, 'cause the character you built there gets Defensive Sweep, Kick, and 1 other non-defense power before 22. They'd be super durable but take -forever- to kill anything! Compare this powerset to it's contemporaries. To Willpower and Bio Armor, Invuln and Energy. To Ice and Stone. To SR and Ninjitsu and Shield. It isn't significantly out of line with any of them, and short of IO Slotting it's going to underperform against some of them and overperform against others. But it does have the almost-unique (Radiation and Shield also do some) ability to offer some minor team benefits, like healing or narrow, temporary, defense boosts, with a capstone that can save a team's butt in a pinch.

It's true that with some IO expenditures you can get softcap. And with IO expenditures and the right primary you can get softcap to all positions. That's also true of MOST powersets. Hell, with the right selection of powers most Blasters and Dominators can get at least 1 type if not two vectors softcapped. With the right set bonuses I can make a SS/Shield Brute with softcapped positions, 57% Damage Resistance to SL (and 20% or more to all other types) and a permanent 107% damage buff that routinely bumps up to over 300% solo. This is why set bonuses are bullshit and aren't the core of balance.

... what about Whirling hands with the staff? Do the big Spinnydo and slam the staff against the ground to create a shockwave? Or co-opt things like Shatter from War Mace which already creates a ground-level animation between you and your target?

You're getting 8.5% to all positions from set bonuses, there. 2.5% per position from Gaussian, 6% from the two Uniques in Tough. You can't say "Softcap at 22 with plain 25 IOs" and use a full set and two uniques as your example. It also specifically requires you to use an attack set which provides defense on attack in order to make up the difference and 3 slot that power -for- defense, rather than Damage or Endurance Reduction. So Katana, Titan Weapons, or Broadsword. It's an increasingly narrow set of conditions to get to "Too good"

Sure, but that's two animations. The wave at enemy and the hold above head. You kind of need more than that to have a decent variety for a powerset. Even for something like an Assault Set, where you're using the staff for ranged and melee, you'd probably want at least 2 more "Ranged Wand" animations.

It'd be one power and one aspect of it. I'd still let it take heals, obviously, because it's designed to be a regen power out of the gate that helps keep you alive as you get low. But the Recharge and Recover aspects are kind of meant to be thematic of someone with adrenaline spiking. Though it'd be worth noting that RoboPet and Powerpack would both take no enhancements whatsoever. Sort of like Bio Armor's Adaptive Toggles and Martial Combat's Reach for the Limit. Fairly forgiving in that aspect as regards slotting, fairly unforgiving in that the basic power pretty much needs Recharge/Resistance with little to no room for endurance reduction.

Would require whole new animations unless you want to palm the sword glued to your open hand at enemies and fire the fireball from the hilt.

True. And the easy answer is to just not let it take End Sets. *shrugs!* It's not that hard to do. I've also been thinking of reducing both the bonus and the cooldown on Body Armor to 18.75% and 7 minutes. That way with SOs it caps out at 28% and stacked with SOs it caps out at 56%. It'd be a little squishier, but it'd also take slightly less time to recharge, bringing the opportunity cost down slightly.

I earnestly feel like it is disingenuous to ignore the weaknesses of the powerset and exclusively discuss it's strengths, particularly when one repeatedly conflates the strengths of the set as being bigger than they actually are. (As regards stacking Performance or slotting the Pets or viewing Adrenal Harness as though players will exist exclusively at 20% HP) Yeah. The set has two Positional defenses at 13.88%. With SOs, Weave, and Maneuvers they'll be able to get that up to 31%. A far cry from softcap and well within range of easy Cascade Failure. (Particularly against Warriors and Freaks who do -def with melee attacks, against a 9.4% defense). It's also their only defense against everything but S/L/E. So CoT and Tsoo and Crey are gonna mess 'em up real good. In PvP they'd be -super- vulnerable to Fire/Ice/Psi Melee. Fully kitting the set out with IOs would probably put it essentially on-par with fully slotted Willpower, in the end. Only Willpower doesn't need to wait 3-5 minutes to get it's defenses online and wouldn't need to either juggle Autofire Keybinds across 3 powers or devote attention to 3 separate "Has to fire on cooldown" abilities. Willpower also wouldn't need to protect a pet from AoE attacks in order to retain their end recovery benefits.

Ehhh... I think it'll depend on the team and the character. The healbot on a mid-size or large team that doesn't have much healing seems more useful than a little more damage. And if you've taken the time to grab the Control Hybrid power, the Spider suddenly becomes -really- powerful, stacking control mags of holds and immobs alongside extra damage. Of course, I honestly expect most players to skip the power because having a pet as a melee type character means it's probably going to get destroyed by AoE, regardless of which one you choose. The set does have two recovery powers, though! One in a toggle that provides 10% more than Stamina does as an inherent autopower... and one that provides... 2%. Oh, sure. It scales up as your HP Drops, and eventually gets to be twice as strong as stamina. But it's mostly there for flavor. Honestly, both of them are mostly there for flavor. Bio Armor gets it for flavor, too, mostly... but it has 5 powers that deal with Endurance. FIVE. Hardened Carapace reduces the end cost of all powers, Inexhaustible gives you regen and recovery and then gives you more, Evolving Armor gives you regen and recovery, and then DNA Siphon and Parasitic Aura both give you biiiiig recovery and end-refill for DNA Siphon. If you have Efficient Adaptation online. 30% End Discount from Hardened Carapace, 35% Recovery from Inexhaustible, 18% recovery from Evolving Armor, up to 125% Recovery from DNA Siphon, and up to 142% Recovery from Parasitic Aura. Compare to 35% if you're using Shockbot and between 2% and 50% based on current HP from Adrenal Harness. 320% Recovery with a 30% end discount... compared to 37-85%.

"You gain" is not "Your Team Gains". The RoboPet powers provide a buff to you while toggled on. Not your team. Where are you even getting that from? As to "Nobody Uses" I beg to differ. I certainly use SOs for most of my character's career. Only those who hit 32 get generic IOs and only those who hit 50 and I'm deeply invested into playing get IO Sets. Until we get a Datamining Check on what portion of the playerbase uses IOs, and what level ranges they're more common at, that's entirely conjecture on your part.

Performance Serum Ignores Recharge Rate changes. I feel like I need to put that above the powerset in big red letters with the number of people who are like "You can easily double or triple stack it!" And yes. I did put it in Comic Sans to make it uglier and harder to ignore. The answer to Performance Shifter is simply "Don't let it take Endurance Sets". Bam. Problem solved. Though the intention of the Pet Toggles was to not allow them -any- enhancements, similar to Bio Armor's three toggles, rather than re-enact Peacebringer Style Slot Starvation. No end cost. No slotting. Just present, providing some team utility. And, again. Powersets are designed based on SOs, not IOs.