Shapeshifter AT

[biostem]

So this is a very vague concept, (and I'm sure others have proposed similar/better/worse ideas), but here's my attempt:

 

What I think differentiates this idea from others is that it'd make use of your other costume slots in a way that sort of "locks" them out from regular use.  There would be a few categories of types of shapeshifters and then a separate method of selecting powers.

 

Some rough categories would be:

 

1. Size changing - your costume remains the same across forms, but you get a larger form that gets better defensive powers and a smaller one that is faster.

 

2. Beasts/monsters - you get a slower/stronger form and a faster/stealthier form.  When you pick the form change power, you are brought to the costume creator and are either restricted to the various beast/monstrous/alien pieces only, or must create a new costume that is sufficiently different from your base costume.  The powers each form get would be something like claws/feral attacks and armor sets.

 

3. Aliens/ghosts/mutants/robots - these are more energy-focused creatures, and you'd get a larger melee-focused tank for and a glass-cannon-like ranged form.

 

4. Elementals - You'd get a tougher, slower, melee form and a faster, higher-damage ranged form.

 

Whether you could mix and match the forms, or they'd be consistent across both forms is up in the air.  I'd love to hear your thoughts.  Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

EDIT:  So to provide some further clarification on how I see this AT working, here's a quick walk-through of one such character:

 

1. You select the shapeshifter AT.

 

2. You choose to be an "Alien/ghost/mutant/robot" shapeshifter.

 

3. You select "radiation" as the power category.  This choice sets both your primary and secondary sets.

 

4. This is where I think I'd need the most help with the concept.  One thought is to make the primary your human-form powers, while the secondary is what grants you your forms and abilities relating to them.  For instance, the T1 power in the secondary is the tougher form.  It has a few basic abilities, and other power picks in the secondary further enhance it.  Maybe one power gives your forms better end recovery or regeneration.  Another gives a tohit bonus.  Another increases power recharge of each form, etc.

 

5. Since you are forced to take 1 form at character creation, you must create a costume for that form, (if you had selected the size-changing shapeshifter, this part would be skipped).  That costume must either use parts from a restricted selection of costume parts, or must be different from your current costume, (perhaps just have the costume editor check that the current costume, if saved as a file, is different than your base one, or just let people keep the same costume if they really wanted).

Edited February 8, 2020 by biostem

[MTeague]

I wouldn't want to have to code it  😉

 

But I love the idea.  Esp the idea as "Shapeshifter" being the AT and the KIND of shapeshifter being basically your primary/secondary powersets.

 

So one kind could be beastmaster, shifts into eagle for flight, panther for combat, etc.

But another shapeshifter might be like, Mr. Fantastic, and stay mostly human-ish, but could punch across the room with extendo-arms or do a knockdown attack by turning into a bouncy-rubber-ball and hurling himself into enemies. 

And ya a third shapeshifter could shift themselves into elements... an iron form, slow and tanky, or into mercury to zip along the ground, or a gas form to fly, etc.

Very expandable to allow other ideas as they were cooked up.

 

I could see it consuming a loooooot of coding time. 

But it would be really fun.

[Alchemystic]

The original dev team tried this with a scrapped archetype called 'Primalist' that was intended to be some sort of animal shapeshifter.

 

Mechanically it was supposed to work a little like Khleldians with a focus on melee and a unique mechanic that changes the secondary effects of powers depending on your form.

 

I cant remember why it was cancelled, but if I had to guess, it was a coding nightmare.

 

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Primalist

 

 

Edited February 8, 2020 by Tyrannical

[Pbuckley818]

 

6 hours ago, Tyrannical said:

The original dev team tried this with a scrapped archetype called 'Primalist' that was intended to be some sort of animal shapeshifter.

 

Mechanically it was supposed to work a little like Khleldians with a focus on melee and a unique mechanic that changes the secondary effects of powers depending on your form.

 

I cant remember why it was cancelled, but if I had to guess, it was a coding nightmare.

 

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Primalist

 

 

Someone has actually finished the Primalist and some servers are getting ready to launch it on their test servers. No information on whether or not Homecoming wilkl be implementing it, If I had to guess it won't be implamented for a while. They will want to make sure it's up to their quality standards after all. Though I think a lot of that will have more to do with the interest from the server population and difficulty it takes to implement. I'd love to have some kind of official poll for this, though maybe after we see the AT in action. It's also a Melee Support AT, so that might make those demands settle down a bit here on the forumns (I doupt It will kill them entirely, but you never know) Though we don't know too much at this point, for all we know this AT is the king of jank and totally and incurably OP or UP, in which case I doubt we will ever see it implemented on Homecoming (and for good reason). 

 

 

Edited February 8, 2020 by Pbuckley818