More for the wishlist: Signature Powers

[BlueBard]

I got to thinking...

One way around the current (stifling, IMHO) restrictive power selections might be the introduction of Signature Powers.

Say at certain major levels you had access to powers outside your normal powersets and the power pools.  Put it at 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 for arguments' sake.

It might be similar to the idea of Power Pools, except these powers would grouped according to level instead of theme.  So, for example, you'd have a list of maybe 4-8 powers available at level 10 and above, another list of 4-8 powers available at 20 and above, etc.  You could only pick one power off each Signature Power list, ever, to prevent it from getting too far out of hand.  Signature Powers could be unique powers outside of the normal powersets, or duplications of select powers from various powersets, or both.  It could be a way to give Fire Blasters and Fire Controllers resistance vs Fire, for example.  You could even have alternate versions of powers that normally require dependencies but made available at a higher level than normal.  For example, a version of Stamina at level 30 that doesn't require two other powers.

Feel free to critique the idea, but remember this is just daydreaming and ultimately probably pointless.  Let's steer away from the usual "that's a stupid idea/won't work/you clueless person" stuff.  The idea is to enable a higher degree of character customization without necessarily breaking the whole system and being (relatively) easy to retrofit into the existing game .  I know they do that to a limited degree with Pool Powers and the various high-level Mastery powers, but I'm always wanting to step outside the box.  Maybe it's an idea that won't work with the current version but may be doable if they ever do a v2.

On a related note, I wish they'd add more temporary powers to the Invention system.  That whole aspect of the system is totally underutilized.  They could use that to add really unique and potent powers that are inherently self-limiting.

[Valandar]

The Invention system, when it was first bandied about, made me think it was ALL gonna be Temp Powers. But nooooo, it isn't. >.<

As for "Signature Powers"... possibly. But, then again, that's where the Epic Power Pools also come in.

[Midnight]

Val's right, these do exist; they're called the epic power pools available starting at level 41. For example, I have a Radiation/Radiation Defender. However, he powers come from her armor. So, at level 41, I take Temp Inulnerability and Total Focus. Boom, all my powers are represented.

[Figure Fan]

Val's right, these do exist; they're called the epic power pools available starting at level 41. For example, I have a Radiation/Radiation Defender. However, he powers come from her armor. So, at level 41, I take Temp Inulnerability and Total Focus. Boom, all my powers are represented.

True, but like BB is saying, there could be something like the Epic sets available every 10 levels to allow for that well-rounded representation sooner, and to a greater degree. I agree. This would be a good implementation.

[BlueBard]

Val's right, these do exist; they're called the epic power pools available starting at level 41. For example, I have a Radiation/Radiation Defender. However, he powers come from her armor. So, at level 41, I take Temp Inulnerability and Total Focus. Boom, all my powers are represented.

True, but like BB is saying, there could be something like the Epic sets available every 10 levels to allow for that well-rounded representation sooner, and to a greater degree. I agree. This would be a good implementation.

Exactly.  In one sense, the Epic Power Pools are too little, too late.  Should you really have to wait until level 41 to add that extra piece that makes your hero really different or fairly represents what you wanted them to be in the first place?

I'm not advocating adding powers that are guaranteed to break the system.  Ranged AoE attacks for Tanks, for example, would probably be a bad idea.  On the other hand, I see no reason why adding things like Shuriken and Caltrops has to wait until such a high level.  Why shouldn't a level 20 scrapper, for example, be unable to drop a patch of Caltrops to keep his enemies from running away? 

And why shouldn't a Fire Blaster have at least some resistance to Fire?  That resistance doesn't have to be as good as what Fire Tanks get, or even as good as the Resist X powers from the Invuln set.  The same Fire Blaster could get some defense against Smashing and Lethal as early as level 14 by taking the Fighting pool, so why not defense vs thermal?

Heck, even leaving aside the idea of yet another set of Power Pools... They could easily leverage the Invention system to create limited-use powers that basically did the same thing to extend the range of available powers.  And without having to muck around with the user interface one bit.  One-shot powers, limited-use powers, time-limited toggles... the mind boggles!

[captainspud]

The AT design of CoH is intentionally designed to avoid well-rounded characters. There's a heavy emphasis on teaming throughout the first 40 levels, enforced by the fact that all characters are "missing" something that they must get from teammates-- damage, mitigation, healing, what have you. The reason they can open up APPs in the 40s is because they get a new way to force teaming-- they stuck AVs in every fifth mission. Since they can now expect people to be teaming no matter what they're doing, they can let people become more well-rounded without hurting team dynamics.

Opening up "rounding" pools at any level before 40 would require them to completely redo the AT balance and a huge chunk of the content.

It's not gonna happen.

[BlueBard]

Heck, they can keep their AT system intact if they want.  I'm not even necessarily suggesting powers that fill-in-the-blanks and turn a Blaster into a BlastTank or a Tank into a TankMage.  They just need to add *something*.

If they absolutely have to keep a lockdown on every AT, then differentiate with a General pool for Blasters, a General pool for Tanks, etc.  That way they could intentionally exclude a given AT from getting a power that's a team-buster.

They MUST open things up somehow, or the next comic hero game is going to eat their lunch.

Personally, I don't give a rip for team dynamics.  Let players find their own team dynamics and play the way they want to play.  But I do understand that there needs to be some kind of balance, so if NCSoft can accomodate even a limited form of opening things up that's better than nothing.

Here's my argument as to why a limited expansion won't hurt game balance that badly:

Take the example of a Fire Blaster who wants some form of Fire defense/resistance.  There are two possible routes to providing that.

The first route is an expanded power pool, however that gets implemented.  The Fire Blaster is forced to make a choice to get the Fire mitigation he wants... He can give up a power slot that might ordinarily go toward a primary, secondary, or travel power to get it, or he can do without.  If the Fire Blaster is giving something up to get it, then that is naturally self-limiting.  We haven't turned him into a Fire BlastTank.  He might have had to give up a secondary power or a generic pool power that he would have taken otherwise.  True, he can grab that later on, but only at the cost of giving up opportunities for slotting that he would have had otherwise.  So he's going to be less powerful than a 'pure' Fire Blaster in some sense, but more versatile in another way.

The second route is leveraging the Invention system.  Now the Fire Blaster has to obtain the necessary Recipe and Salvage and spend the Influence to build it.  The Fire Resistance toggle is time-limited for, say, 15 minutes.  Once the 15 minute timer runs out, he has to start all over to build it again.  This way is probably a lot harder to balance as it would be nigh impossible to limit it to specific AT's and specific levels, but the short timer combined with the overhead of the Invention system guarantees that the power will only be used sparingly.

Either way, the devs still have full control over what powers are made available.

Now, if that still isn't sufficient to keep the game in balance, let the expanded powers come with built-in weaknesses.  Take the Fire Blaster example again.  Say he gets a Fire Resistance passive that comes with a negative defense vs Cold.  Yes, his Fire resistance is 'always on', but so is his vulnerability.  He gets to last longer against other Fire Blasters and Fire Tanks, but he's going to have problems when he faces Ice Blasters and Ice Tanks.

That doesn't stifle team dynamics.  It actually makes team dynamics more fluid and adds another layer of challenge to the game that's actually logical.  Forbid we should ever add tactical complexity to the game, eh?

I'm definitely not saying that adding this kind of thing isn't a lot of work.  I just think they need to do it if they want to have any shot at keeping the game off life-support.  There are certain paradigms that I think the game needs to step away from, and different synergies the game needs to allow to develop.

[captainspud]

Ugh... you used paradigm and synergies in the same sentence. If you'd tossed "proactive" in there, I'm pretty sure the forums would've imploded.

:blink:

[Valandar]

Nah, he just would have been immediately hired by a Marketing firm...

[Midnight]

I know that this is appropo of nothing because it's a theoretical discussion, but fire and cold damage are pretty uncommon (cold moreso than fire).

I actually agree with the temp powers. My Spines/Regen has a baseball bat because he's a bit of a thug. My AR/Traps has a revolver. It's be neat if my Kat/SR could craft some shuriken. One of the problems with this is, if the temps are unbalanced, they break PVP. If they break PVP, a small but very VERY vocal minority gets angry. Temporary powers have been available in PVP since the outset, in fact you can buy a number of them there (the IR Goggles are neat).

I'm intrigued by your idea of pools though. Okay, let's have fun: Pitch a couple sets along the lines of a power pool, like...

Tank Pool
Fire Specialty
Heatwave
You send a blast of heat towards your opponents, blurring their vision and possibly stunning them.

Etc, etc. The first two being available at level 6, the second tier at 14 and the third at 20, just like power pools.