Steampunkette

Honestly do not know. Maybe turn Empathic to a fear rather than stun? I can't think of many other directions for it to go, other than KB centric. Intangible is both too rare and too hacky to easily swap into something else. I had wanted, initially to do an "Energy Admixture " power, where damage type swapping was a partial thing managed by preselected options. Like half of a Dark power becoming Psi for fear. Or 1/3rd of a bladed Lethal attack becoming Toxic for poisoning the edge. But such a power would have to essentially force a partial rewrite of EVERY attack power in the game.

Nope. It was just easiest, most likely, based on the way the engine they purchased managed art assets. The engine is probably closer to Quake than Modern Warfare, after all.

I understand that. I mean there's no connection between the two. There's almost certainly no way to set up a connection between the two without completely changing the way the UI works. Which means basically rebuilding the Costume Editor from scratch.

It would! But powers would never detoggle from running out of endurance. Neither would Debuffs. Or things like Telekinesis. If we were going to do something like that we'd have to be -incredibly- careful as to how we went about it.

There's no connection. Think of it like folders on your desktop. You open "Torso" and double-click on "Tank Top" to open a Picture Viewer of the tank top torso. Then you back up to the higher folder, swap from the "Torso" folder to "Torso with a Jacket" and load up a Tank Top image in a Picture Viewer. It can't "Respect" your last choice 'cause your last choice isn't part of your new choice. Different folder.

For the record, Zepp, Blasters and Corruptors would see some of the -highest- benefit from the 20% endurance reduction toggle. Simply because almost all of their abilities are Clicks rather than toggles (And thus the ATs have a higher EPS rate during combat) except for Corruptors who have toggles which are all in the more expensive range (Radiation, Dark, Etc). Right up there with Controllers, Dominators, and Defenders. And yeah. We'd have to go through on a power by power basis to balance out stun times. That's something we've agreed on. You don't have to keep repeating it every post. I also really dislike the "well thought out as it could be" comment. It's incredibly dismissive and disdainful for an idea I threw together in literally 6 freaking minutes. Of course it's not as well thought out as it could be. It's a freaking Napkin-Scribble!

Megajoule is right. The Jacket is not a "Layer" on the model. I mean it is but it isn't within the game itself. "Torso with Jacket" is a separate model from Torso. Yeah, the whole body is under it with all the skin and geos and everything. But the engine doesn't register the torso as separate from the jacket in the costume generator. There is no way to "Hide" that layer without reworking how the game deals with models and geo-sets.

Honestly that looks freaking amazing...

So... War Mace/Shield? Should be a lot of fun! Slot for Positional Defense. Grab the 2 Resistance IOs that grant +3% Defense and slap them into True Grit. Go for Weave and you'll be golden in no time flat with Soft Cap. Ignore Grant Cover. Skip One With The Shield. The former is only useful on teams, the latter ignores recharge and becomes a 6 minute "Panic Button" that isn't -really- worth it. Shield charge can be mapped with "/bind LShift+LButton powexec_name Shield Charge" so that shift-clicking a point in range of Shield Charge results in it firing off at that location. Makes it -vastly- simpler to use.

Simple enough! I'd like a little "Developer Roadmap" section of the forum which everyone can view, but only the Devs and GMs can post or edit, where each of the Devs and GMs posts their own "This is what I'm working on" or "This is why I hope to put together" road map for the next few months. Everything in the forum should obviously have the caveat "This is not final, some things may be voted down within the team, other things may be found impossible, and still others might just die on the vine because that's development for you" with little notes one way or the other on them. Especially as the dev team grows (IF the Dev Team Grows) so that we, the community, have some kind of insight as to what we might be able to look forward to. Yeah. There are probably people who will scream and rant if their favorite Pet Project hits a Dev's Roadmap and then gets sidelined or brickwalled or whatever, but at least we'd have some idea of what to look forward to as a community. Maybe update it once every 6 months or once every Year or so... But so long as none of it is promised and it's all couched in "We'd Like" or "I'm trying" we should be fairly okay.

Interrupt is a cool mechanic for two reasons: 1st) Theme. Taking time and focus or delicate care for some activity that is then interrupted is a core part of Comic Storytelling. Whether it's trying to engage in a ritual or Do Science on the battlefield or a Telekinetic REALLY FOCUSING 'til their nose bleeds there's plenty of examples of situations in comics where if a specific character is attacked/jostled/whatever they have to either start over or all hope is lost. Most of that can't -really- be done in a videogame, but Interruptible powers give us some of it. But we do get some of that with Glowie-Interaction. 2nd) Self-Breaking. There have been times where I started an Assassin's Strike on a boss only to have a friend suddenly state 'AFK!' and had to stop myself from starting a fight that I would subsequently be alone in... Or setting up a snipe to pull a group with the same sort of "Wait! We can do X instead!" and had to stop the snipe from firing off. Sometimes I'll be preparing a snipe on one group and someone will face-pull another. Brakes go on! Gotta stop -that- immediately and turn to focus on the group that's already in combat. I do think we need more things that are interruptible. Not just Glowies that you click and stand beside, but how about "Positional Glowies" where you click it and it causes your character to animate in a certain way? Like a wall that deals X amount of damage after Y event has been triggered unless a character clicks Z emanation point which makes their character stand in front of the wall to hold it up? Sure you'd get some silly things like 4ft tall stick figure controllers holding the wall up, but you'd also get the 8ft tall huge bodied rock-monster in Granite Armor stopping the wall from collapsing so long as he ain't interrupted. That kind of stuff would be cool.

Cool beans. Dictatorship one step removed from your hands is still a dictatorship. Part of the reason I was cool with suddenly whipping up a whole power pool of "Metapowers" was the idea that because it was an explicit investment into one's build there'd be LESS little dictators running around demanding everyone use their KB to KD toggle or get booted from the team. Making it an inherent means it's in everyone's arsenal. Meaning those dictators have got some ground to stand on, shaky as it is, to appeal to authority. And I never want to encourage that kind of miserably behavior in a game. Much less one that I love so dearly with a community so welcoming.

Yes. I did the math, before, remember? Thanks to cast times you could get off that chain 4 times within the duration of the Empathic Investment. (Can't reduce Animation Times, after all). And thanks to Shockwave and Siren's doing piddly damage you'd be giving up your role as DPS to instead stun-lock a group for a certain amount of time (Unless you miss) based on the duration of the stun tied to Empathic Investment. HOWL makes sense. But there's no sane reason to keep using Shockwave when stuff like Shout exists. No matter how you slice it, the Blaster would be giving up a LOT of damage just to try and permastun some enemies. Period. And if that's the case the Survival to DPS shift is there to work on a balance. And dude, I don't care how long the Sleeps are. I don't. I just do not give 1 flying frog fart. 'Cause we can make the Stun last for as long or as short as we want.

You made a big show about leading meaning you get total control, Kelly. The ship on me thinking otherwise has sailed.

They're as much powers as Hasten or Field Medic are powers. They're powers whose only purpose is to modify other powers. I just made a whole pool of them, instead of one power in a pool. Yes, Kelly. I know how you disagree and why. I also know you're the kind of person who would DEMAND everyone on your teams use the KB/KD or KB/KU power and kick anyone who doesn't use it. Which is a big part of why I don't hold your opinion on this matter as being particularly unbiased. Make no mistake: Aside from Explosive Effort every power in this proposed pool could create big balance changes... And the only reason that one wouldn't is because the increase of survivability from KB over KD is around the same as the DPS loss from an ungrouped NPC during an AoE Slogfest. Making them Power Pool Picks is itself a balancing factor. Making these inherent to all characters would require some nerfing. Like... Immune to Recharge Changes style nerfing. FPU's End Discount being dropped to 7-10% style nerfing. Maybe some of these powers would be "Nearly Mandatory" for certain builds. But I'd take "Nearly Mandatory" over "Use it or I'm kicking you!"

Too much power as an inherent. Any and all of these powers would need to be nerfed into the ground from where they -are- to be made into inherents.

Put simply: Click Mez is superior. Yeah. You don't have to remember a toggle. But a toggle is a constant end-drain, sucking away just a tiny bit of your power that could be spent on an attack. And a lot of enemy groups don't really -have- Mez until you're SO level (Circle of Thorns being the big exception because low-level Thorns are monsters) But with a Click? It functions like a Break Free. Click it when you need it, and don't bother with it the rest of the time. Or click it right before you run into a fight where you're going to be dealing with me. Once it's SO slotted it'll always be ready either at the start of a fight with mez, or in the middle of it. I love click protection. It's so -rare- and useful and people always poo poo on it 'cause it's different from the Meztoggle or Mez across toggles powers. ... that said. Master Brawler exists as a precedent. So maybe the Devs have different thoughts on the matter. Or at least think there should be room for both in a given set... So let's see how it shakes out. Personally I'd rather have both options than only toggles. It already works that way. Has for a long time.

It wouldn't actually be "Cut Sleep Duration X by Y seconds" It would be "Mag 3 Stun Z Seconds". A completely separate entry in the power itself. So we could set the stun duration however long was appropriate. The "Tax" to get it would be a bit steep. One power you might use, another power you -MIGHT- use if your build has some KB or KD... and then a pretty powerful ability that makes your Sleeps even more useful than wide are long-lasting fairly fast recharging crowd control (that breaks on a single point of damage, granted). It's a big benefit, and I kind of feel like both Controllers and Dominators would benefit, -heavily- from the FPU power. Like... A lot a lot. Almost all their Primary/Secondary powers are clicks with fairly high costs! As to the KB Tax: Power Pools can be set up so you can take the first 3 powers without having to take any prior powers. So the "KB Tax" would still be just one power pick. Intangibles are just too rare. There's what? Four or five in the entire game? And what would you even -do- with an Intangible power to make it still useful but different?

Sell a "Customized Base Teleporter". So you buy a Special Base Teleporter. It uses the Base macro internally, but you make a macro that inputs the base code you want. /macro Invincibase powexec_name Customized Base Teleporter "Invincible-606" As far as the power is concerned I just typed in "/enterbasefrompasscode Invincible-606" and I load in there. Boom. Now I have a customized button for a macro on my toolbar that lets me go to the Invincible Base on Everlasting -but- it has an activation time and a Cooldown. I could make 12 different Macros of that power, each with a different base code tied to it so I don't have to memorize them all, but if I use any of them the Customized Base Teleporter goes on Cooldown and I can't use the others 'til it's off cooldown.

Better idea: Sell a "Customized Base Teleporter". So you buy a Base Teleporter. It uses the Base macro internally, but you make a macro that uses it with an argument. /macro Invincibase powexec_name Customized Base Teleporter "Invincible-606" Boom. Now I have a customized button for a macro on my toolbar that lets me go to the Invincible Base on Everlasting -but- it has a Cooldown. I could make 12 different Macros of that power, each with a different base code tied to it, but if I use any of them the Customized Base Teleporter goes on Cooldown and I can't use the others 'til it's off cooldown.

Definitely possible. Sentinels, too. Also Widows and Soldiers of Arachnos, PBs, and WSs... Rune of Protection would protect you for a limited time but it's a -deep- investment. But the Support ATs, Blasters, and Control characters, also Masterminds, would run a higher risk of getting detoggled, it's true. Of course they're also all at range so not getting the PBAoE or regular AoE mezzes aimed at the tank. (If they're on a team) and if they're soloing they could pop a Break Free ahead of a fight with mezzer mobs... But maybe we could or should make different ATs get different levels of benefit from it? Not 100% sure on implementation, after all. I threw this together over about 6 minutes of going "Oooo! What if!"

Focused Power Use is set up as a toggle with a long recharge because it's a -very- nice power! 20% End Reduction would save a lot of builds out there a lot of endurance slotting, freeing them up for more damage/defense/other survivability. By making it a toggle that gets broken with CC (like Taunt Toggles or Offensive Toggles) we create a risk element. Do you base your build around something that -can- become detoggled and suck wind when it breaks until it recharges? Probably! But it creates an element of risk to reward. Also it makes you hate Malta -EVEN MORE-. Explosive Effort: Understandable, but KD powers are less common than KB powers and the mitigation provided isn't going to be a comprehensive or big quantity. Especially compared to the potential damage increase for Restrained Impulse or Directed Force... Restrained Impulse: I feel like a cost-free toggle is too much for a Pool Power. Making it a Permable Click gives it a quick out of the box turnaround while still giving it an endurance investment (That gets lowered by Focused Power Use if you take it). Sort of like Hasten or Practiced Brawler. Directed Force: Doesn't add Mitigation. DOES increase damage values. Enemies that pop up but stay in the same area keep inside AoE powers while a knocked back opponent could wind up out of an AoE. Empathic Investment: I chose Sleep because it's specifically something that gets largely shafted in team play by AoEs. Fears don't. Neither do any other form of crowd control. There's no need for an olive branch. I'm not angry or anything.

It would give high damage ATs who choose one specific power and one specific primary powerset an amazing stunlock ability for 30 seconds out of 80. There's no other fast-recharging AoE Sleep out there. And no. You wouldn't be doing decent damage. For the sake of argument lets say you've gotten the Siren's Song recharge to 5 seconds. It has a 2.44 second Cast Time. So you use it once and then 7.44 seconds later you get another hit of it. Each one deals 60 damage at level 50 fully slotted. During that 7 seconds you've got 4.56 seconds to fire off another attack or two. Howl being the most obvious choice ('Cause AoE). Fully slotted that's 100.9 damage and you've just spent another 2.5 seconds casting it. You're down to 2 seconds left and all your abilities have at least a 1.18 cast time, so if you wanna stack that stun you get 1 single target attack -or- you can knock enemies away for 57 more damage. You stack it, you get the boss (Unless it's Arachnos) you're back to 7.44 seconds. By throwing off that long cast time animation over, and over, and over, you're more than halving your possible DPS for Single Target in order to lock things down. This is true whether you're a Blaster or Corruptor... Even Sentinels. And after 4 stacks, you're back to casting sleeps around That said. Maybe you're right. The easy answer is to make the Duration Different. See, this wouldn't just replace the word "Sleep" with "Stun" in the power. It'd be more like Fiery Embrace's interaction with Scrapper powers. A separate tag would need to be made at the end of the power entry for the Stun effect and to remove the Sleep effect. We could always just set the Stun Duration as half that of the Sleep Duration. Or 3/4s. Or whatever testing presents as appropriate.

It's going to get disabled. That's really not a matter of debate, I think. It wasn't meant to be turned on for global use and it circumvents a -ton- of other stuff. The Devs have said it's going to be disabled soon. The whole "PvP shouldn't dictate" blather is irrelevant. The "Make it not work in PvP Zones" blather is irrelevant. This thread should've ended 10am (CST) yesterday when Leandro said it wasn't gonna be available.

Or we could... y'know... ... ask. The Devs I mean. If this is something that's possible. But... It still wouldn't help the overlapping Taunt issue. And I don't think there -is- a way to fix that. After a few seconds you'd be right back to 16 total NPCs taunted by you and your pet both trading off who they are even if it -could- work. Which just means it's another Taunt Aura and nothing more. Though the Force Bubble/Fire Effects/Sonic Bubbles/Etc are not pseudopets tied to the character. They're Auras tacked onto the character model. That's how they're able to assume the same size as the target, rather than small characters having a big character's Fire Aura not lining up with their hands/heads/etc.