New APP suggestion: "Partner"

[biostem]

So this suggestion would be for a special pool power set.  The idea is that you can call upon some sort of "partner" to assist you in your heroism or villainy, (or wherever you lie between).  It would hinge on some ability to customize their appearance, (a big ask, I know, but I'm hoping that in the limited scope of this single power set, they could adapt the phantom army mirror customization option or just access a costume save file somehow - if not, this partner would act as a permanent summon, so you could just use the mirror option as-is and just change your own costume "off screen", summon them, then change back).

 

1. Summon partner - This would be the basic summon power that the others in the set all act upon.  The partner starts out with some basic melee attacks, (brawl, boxing, and something like the origin knife throw power), as well as some basic resists.  Ideally, this power should allow us to assign a costume save file to it, or barring that, at least have the mirror option from phantom army and maybe a few other generic models, (male, female, huge).

 

2. Small arms training - Provides a few conventional weapon attacks - I'm thinking a few of the more straightforward dual pistols attacks.

 

3. Elemental training - Provides some basic elementally-themed attacks - An ice blast, a fireball, a lightning bolt, etc.

 

4. Exotic training - Provides some basic, but more exotic attacks - A dark blast, a radiation blast, and then maybe a psychic blast.

 

5. Defensive training - Provides some DEF to your partner as well as a self heal.

 

Again, a huge "like to have" would be for each of the attack-type powers to be mutually exclusive, granting your partner even more abilities from the selected category, but barring that, being able to take more than 1 would result in a partner with a lot of attacks, but I think things could be balanced to not make them too OP...

Edited April 11 by biostem

[Rudra]

Okay... uhm... I need some clarification please. On the one hand, your post reads as a pool that players can only get 3 powers from ever because of the mutual exclusivity of the attack powers. Which would run up against the Sentinel's armor exclusive powers problem the devs said they won't do again. On the other hand, your suggestion also reads as more attacks being available from a selected category, which implies to me that the pool is actually a group of pools linked together through the 1st power of the pool. Which would make far more sense as an AT, but that AT has already been discussed multiple times. So I am thoroughly confused as to what you are actually asking for.

 

Edit: And hopefully before anyone counters with the 'can select all powers from the set' response, that is the author's 'I'll settle for" result. I'm asking about the actual desired result.

 

Edited April 11 by Rudra

[biostem]

6 hours ago, Rudra said:

Okay... uhm... I need some clarification please. On the one hand, your post reads as a pool that players can only get 3 powers from ever because of the mutual exclusivity of the attack powers. Which would run up against the Sentinel's armor exclusive powers problem the devs said they won't do again. On the other hand, your suggestion also reads as more attacks being available from a selected category, which implies to me that the pool is actually a group of pools linked together through the 1st power of the pool. Which would make far more sense as an AT, but that AT has already been discussed multiple times. So I am thoroughly confused as to what you are actually asking for.

 

Edit: And hopefully before anyone counters with the 'can select all powers from the set' response, that is the author's 'I'll settle for" result. I'm asking about the actual desired result.

 

Essentially, if I had my "drothers", you'd have to take the 1st power that summons the partner before being able to take any of the other powers.  That would include some basic attacks so that pet wouldn't be useless.  After that, you could then optionally pick one of the 3 attack-type powers to further distinguish just what kind of partner you wanted, (I tried to keep them fairly generic to cover a wide variety of concepts).  If they could be made to be mutually exclusive, (which, yes, I fully recognize is not likely to happen), then such a selection would consist of more than the 2-3 powers I mentioned, and would instead totally replace the base powers, and consist of more than stated beforehand.  The final power would simply be to up their  survivability.  I fully admit it's not the most streamlined approach, but I do think it could cover a lot of concepts, and being a regular power pool, would also be available to all ATs and even existing characters, (if they respec or were still leveling up and had pools/power picks left)...

[TheMoneyMaker]

5 power set, but you can only take 4 total

 

First 2 powers are mutually exclusive pet powers and defines what kind of pet you have: melee or ranged

The next 3 powers are upgrade powers.

[Doc_Scorpion]

So, what differentiates this from an MM?  I mean, as I read it, it's a weird and very specialized MM...  but it's still an MM.

[FrozenSolid]

I suppose it could be making Defenders, Corruptors and Controllers into mini-Masterminds.

[biostem]

3 hours ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

So, what differentiates this from an MM?  I mean, as I read it, it's a weird and very specialized MM...  but it's still an MM.

It's a single minion/ward/friend/partner, not 6+.  We can already get pets from the PPPs, (albeit only temporarily), so it isn't entirely new, either.

[biostem]

1 hour ago, FrozenSolid said:

I suppose it could be making Defenders, Corruptors and Controllers into mini-Masterminds.

Corrs & Defenders can get a pet via the darkness set, so the precedent for them getting a pet already exists.  They can also get an additional pet via the PPPs.  This would be an alternate APP that solely focuses on that single pet.  Also, MMs already get support secondaries and have some blasts, so by your logic, are MMs "mini-defenders"?

[Rigged]

So basically a PPP pet, but the entire PPP is just upgrades for a pet that is perma by default?

 

... is this a sneaky plot to get an NPC sidekick?

 

It's a sneaky plot to get an NPC sidekick, isn't it.

[Chris24601]

10 hours ago, Rigged said:

So basically a PPP pet, but the entire PPP is just upgrades for a pet that is perma by default?

 

... is this a sneaky plot to get an NPC sidekick?

 

It's a sneaky plot to get an NPC sidekick, isn't it.

Honestly, ever since Dragon Age: Origins and the SWTOR mmo I just find it fun to have a companion NPC/sidekick along.

 

Comics are rife with sidekicks; heck, in universe most of Ms. Liberty’s Vindicators are sidekicks.

 

So long as the sidekick doesn’t exceed the value of an equivalent power(s) the only difficulty I see with this would be in getting the costuming to work.

 

 I know another server managed custom costumes for MM pets at the cost of costume slots. That approach was largely deemed too costly (you needed six slots), but might be revisitible for an APP that required only one (and did not necessarily even lock you out of that one… the power customization option would just be for which costume slot to reference).

 

Along a similar vein for selling the concept; what if the summon was literally a weaker mirror self, akin to the clones and doppelgängers introduced in some mid-20’s arcs and showing up in some of the morality missions?

 

The default APP would be pulling an alternate you from another dimension. Power Customization would be for which costume slot to use (default is your current costume) so that those who want to can make them look completely different if they want, but those who want every costume slot aren’t put out.

 

This would have a practical limit of the mirror self always using a subset of your powers, but that’s a fairly common comic trope anyway. Robin isn’t a mutant with fire powers, Kid Flash isn’t a super strong brute, Supergirl isn’t a psychokinetic puddle of pink protoplasm (at least not since that weird time in the 90’s we all ignore).

 

It wouldn’t do everything the OP wants, but I think that would be an easier sell… particularly if, instead of a power pool, it was associated with a Portal Corps-related badge or accolade (existing or new) you could earn.