I know that you have to upgrade a power with the + button at least twice in campaign mode to make the next power available, but does the power's damage/effectiveness actually get upgraded? I mean, is there a formula or something? or does it not actually do anything?
I've never used it for creating my own danger room heroes, but I was just idly wondering if I actually made minute man hit harder or if all my CP are pretty much worthless once all the individual powers are unlocked.
If i'm not mystaken, the exact description you get is "the power and effectivness will be increased" (when you let your cursor on the "+" sign, a window with that message will pop up)
I'm not sure it increses damage, but for state-changing attacks it increases the percentage of success (for stasis or hypnose and such). I think ranged attack get an accuracy boost too.
But for damage and an actual formula, i don't know if we have that...
Long story short, if you're making hero file to play in the danger room, you should probably put your powers to level 3 to be balanced.
When creating/editing characters, you can see the change in some of the characteristics of the power when you change levels. Here are some changes you'll see (I set Magnitude to Medium, just to have a nice round number to start with.):
Level1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5
All Powers
Magnitude 10 12 15 17 20
Stun (low) 7% 7% 8% 9% 9%
KB (low) 4 5 6 7 8
Melee
Swiftness (normal) 5 6 7 8 10
Area
Radius 22ft 25ft 27ft 29ft 32ft
I didn't double check all the power types (ranged didn't have any specific changes other than what was listed under "All Powers"). I don't know if these changes are actually reflected in game or what the effect is on built-in characters (I hardly ever use them).
Cool. Thanks for the info, Tre, Hoss.