I'd like to see some kind of gadget/technology based control set. Using web grenades, sleep gas, tazers, etc. I always felt controls were missing a nice Tech/Natural themed power set

Traps was a support set with heavier control elements, similar to dark miasma in that way.

Luscious wrote:

well didnt COH have those under the Mastermind setup??

Traps and trick arrow had control elements, but they were still support sets. What I want is a full-blown control set.

Could we see a sonic powerset?

graff wrote:

I would really like to see a light power set as CoH never had one but the green lantern was very much apart of super heroes . light powers could work for any kind of control set or even a blaster set

I was going to say myself that I would like to see some sort of "light" based power set.

I imagine the engine that being used is much more flexible than what CoH was running on so they have a little more leeway with what will work.

Sounds like somebody needs to explain how powers are going to work in the new game. What follows is not necessarily how it will be presented to players at character creation. But it is an explanation of how the fundamental assembly works, how it is different from CoH and how that changes possibilities and potential.

Basically, things have been broken up. A power set is now composed of three things: the Base, the Theme, and the Animation. All three can be mixed and matched with impunity. If you wanted, say, an electric powered brawler, you might pick a Brawl base (melee fists without martial arts finesse), an Electricity theme, and then an appropriate animation set. If you wanted a Light blaster, you might pick Pierced Range, a Light theme, and one of several Light based animations. Obviously none of the actual bases or themes are set in stone. And animations will continue to proliferate deliciously throughout the game. But it's good to understand this so you can brainstorm more effectively.

For example, yeah, we want Light stuff. That's probably a theme, but what sort of base might that fall under? How many ranged bases can you think of anyway? How to categorize Sonic? And as a theme, what would distinguish characteristics of a Light theme from others? A blind effect, or a burn? Or a mix? We could have sonic be the same as in CoH, or we could try to do better. It's a theme, but what does it do special? How many different things can it do?

How about bases in general? These will need to be chosen and designed right to create the kind of synergy and ever new feeling combinations we want. Is there just Hand to Hand melee, or should there be several sub-categories of that, with their own traits? Remember, animation is separate, it's not a trait. You could choose a martial arts animation for ANY base and theme combination that's hand to hand. So what makes it Martial Arts as a base? Ability to stun? Higher accuracy? Higher crit chance? How about Brawl? Could it have, perhaps, an intimidation effect proc due to its ferocious style, maybe, differentiating it as a base. That's the kind of thing we're looking for. It's different, yes, but the potential is mind boggling, or so I see it.

So - water. Now water is definitely a must have theme. But it is a theme, as power design will work in TPP. Not a whole set. Not yet.

So, water as a theme. What characteristics should it have? Stun? End drain? What kinds of bases can it fall under? You could have it for a Blunt base and work by bludgeoning with heavy waves and bolts (pick the right animation, set!). Or a pierce base and use concentrated lines of it.

That's for the ranged attack version. For control, perhaps, you'd choose between a Restraint base or a Disable base. Perhaps the water theme would blur the line between the two. And defense? Probably a deflection base, or a Resistance base (it absorbs a portion of incoming damage before it reaches you). You need to change how you're thinking. Just throwing out the old CoH stuff isn't really doing any good. Not that your opinion isn't valued, but we're reinventing this stuff, and that means the old need to be redefined. The old sets now represent just one incarnation of many possibles for that basic theme of water. You could choose water for a weapon! Blade, water, sword, and attack with water blades. You're thinking too small here. CoH's examples are child's play compared to what we can do now. We can design entire categories of possibilities to put into the players hands.

That's part of what we're still working out. We know how the powers will be put together, but not how the UI will work. What you describe is certainly something that needs to be allowed for, but it's premature. First things first. Once we know what our bases and themes ARE, we can talk about how to best streamline the process of choosing them for players - what shows up when and what gets sort of hidden as backend, for maximum usability and accessibility, and minimum confusion.

omg I wunt a fyre powr set plez!!!!

*slaps self*

Sorry about that.

One thing I'd like to see here (kinda on topic) is a difference in the way your power origin develops. For example, if you were mutant or some such, maybe your abilities had to be more linked, but were also more effective and synergized. By contrast, a tinkerer with some kind of power armor could be much more versatile in terms of crossing power sets, due to the fact that in order to get a new power, the person just builds whatever his imagination and intelligence can devise.

A few power sets I would like to see:

1: Whip or chain power set: Allow for customizing beyond just standard whip.

2: Metal Tank Power set: Instead of default covered in fire or earth, allowed tank to be covered in metal

3: Wind Power set: Not a screaming one, one in which you commands the 4 corners of wind.

4: Magic Power set: Instead of just blasts of magic, the character takes out a spell book, creates runes in the air or uses their staff to unleash powerful spells.

5: Time manipulation: Something that affects the speed of your or foe attacks, maybe backs up you or the foe as if rewinding time and so forth.

6: Arachnos Widow like power set: Mental/stabby ninja with poison

7: Bane/Crab spider: allow so you can modify the look of the arms and beyond just normal gun or lasers behavior, perhaps swords or axes.

8: Ninja Power set: Throw stars, use nunchaku and stealth.

All New Power set Idea:
A power idea that I've had in my head for awhile you could call possession where your body channels some dark power it covers your arm in darkness then as you level, it begins to cover your entire body. it starts out as hand to hand combat but as you level you gain ability to do range, heals, and controls.

Possibly a power set of the opposite color, being it's polar opposite carrying a lore/story like the Kheldians aka the Peacebringer and Warshade.

You might have seen elsewhere that I'd love to see Sonic... but I'd also love to see an aggressive Telekinetics set. A lot of games offer TK as a defensive set, but haven't really done it as offense. I would LOVE to be able to trap an enemy in a TK bubble, and slllloooooowly squeeze the juice out of them, or generate a storm of telekinetic "blades" to attack a foe, or hurl an armor-piercing kinetic "spike." Even better would be the option to have both defensive and offensive TK powers -- using it to deflect incoming attacks (chance to dodge) rather than trying to stop it cold (armor).

Base--Any actually
Theme--Luck (perhaps luck power level vs opposing power/skill level)
Animation--weapon jams, opponent misses, opponent or self trips allowing an attack to miss, mechanical/electrical systems fail, guard asleep or fails to notice you as you try and sneak by, etc.

In many games Luck is one of the hardest "powers" to implement as it can literally effect anything, but I would love to see it be applied in some form ;)

Base--Flight
Theme-- Defense
Animation-- Rolls, Dodges, climbs/dives, etc.
(these maneuvers could have variable degrees in execution based on power level. Quicker rolls and dodges, or steeper degrees of climbs/dives could be attainable to avoid arial attacks)

Base-- Flight
Theme-- Utility
Animation--increased or different style of flight
(could be something like super speed added to existing flight, Space flight (sublight and intergalactic), Levitation, hovering, etc.)
** or even an uncontrollable balloon type flight; "Could someone PLEASE grab Zeppelin Man, again, before he floats away!" ** ;)

I would like to see a teleportation attack power ie; powers u get to teleport in different ways ,
1 so u could have a stun teleport,
2 maybe even a teleport group hold ,
3 a aoe spot that teleports the victims to another spot and immobilizes them so anyone that runs into the aoe area gets put in a cluster immobilized,
4 a teleport power that does a damage and moves the victim to any spot,
5 a teleporting slam against a wall,
6 a repelling teleportation aoe ,that teleports them all to one area ,
7 a teleporting power that drains endurance and health points, and gives it as a buff around that caster,
8 a teleport single hold,

also a mirror power would be a interesting power each mirror power does a different thing ie;
1 a mirror hold the victim can only stare at their own reflection,
2 ring of mirrors puts the castor and team mates in a defensive cloak and stealth ,
3 a mirror reflects the attack back at the castor but at a % of the original amount,
4 a group stairs at itself, and walks towards the mirror enters a sleep aoe,
5 a blind attack flashing a mirror at a enemy blinds them,
6 a shatter attack doing damage over time to a group of enemies.

No, this is how OUR game would work. CoH was much simpler, but also more limited, relatively speaking: it took the devs a lot of work to create each power set. For CoH, this would have been a set of alternate animations under the Super Reflexes defense set. Thing is, it was almost as much effort for them to provide alternate animations as to redesign the whole power set. That won't be the case for us. This is our solution to doing it one (or five) better.

I'd be happy if I could get on top of a truck that happened to be going my way!

Steve

Hell that would be funny.....Pulling or herding a mob of thugs while you hitch a ride on a local delivery truck on it's way to the police station......

snate56 wrote:

I'd be happy if I could get on top of a truck that happened to be going my way!
Steve

THIS! Hell I even tried hitchin a ride on the zeppelin in Atlas.

Mount wrote:

OK, so the prior post about telekinetics has a number of different things in it; breaking it out into a base/theme/animation may be interesting.
The Juicer:
Base: Ranged single-target damage/control
Theme: telekinetic/force bubble (or in a nature-themed set, perhaps a cage of thorny vines)
Animation: enemy trapped in sphere of force, lifted off ground, sphere slowly shrinks, squeezing enemy and causing DoT (and juicy leakage).
Bladestorm:
Base: Damage, targeted AOE -- or -- damage, targeted cone -- or -- damage/control, area denial
Theme: telekinetic/ghostly blades (or nature: raven flock swoops to attack)
Animation: (TAOE) blades swirl chaotically around target, slashing him and any nearby enemy targets.
(Cone) blades spray forth from caster, slashing enemies in cone
(Denial) a wall of chaotically swirling blades appears between caster and target -- attempts to pass through this area will damage target and slow or knockback.
Spike:
Base: Ranged damage, piercing
Theme: telekinetic/ghostly blade (or shuriken, thrown knife, stone spike, vacuum blade, blah blah blah)
Animation: Caster raises arm across chest, generates plane of TK force at fingertips, then extends hand toward enemy and fires/throws blade at enemy.
enhancement possibility: Bleed, armor ablation
TK field:
Base: armor, deflection
Theme: telekinetic (or air, or flock of birds, probability/"luck" effects, etc)
Animation: Caster generates field around self. Ranged attacks are bent/deflected by this field (giving caster a higher chance to avoid, or receive only "glancing" hits). Melee attacks are harder to deflect (lower chance of total avoidance, higher chance of "glance")
As a boost possibility, deflection armor might give a chance to redirect incoming attack damage onto another enemy target.
Is this closer to the format in which you're working, Shadow?

Definitely much closer, though not quite there. Still a great post though.

To break this down, you have to do two things to really get this format that can be difficult at first. The first is to truly divorce visuals from mechanics. The first two, base and theme, are not actually based in visuals at all, though the game might limit visuals to prevent someone from creating, say, water themed attacks that look electric (note I said *may* please :D). They are pure mechanics.

Base defines a base style - most of yours have the right idea, except for where you specified the base as piercing. That's the other thing, understanding which mechanics are what. You're having to disentangle elements that until now have always been handed to you as a package. The damage type is defined by the theme, as is the effects it can have - it's the flavor that further defines the base style. When you typed Ranged Single Target, you were right on the money. When you suggested Control was based on this with different things happening on contact, you were really starting to hit on the beauty of the system, why it can allow the devs to create so much so fast, besides for the obvious benefits of infinite mix and match. But many of your themes stray into visual territory, defining them in ways that are best defined by animation, or even the player himself.

For instance, the Juicers theme should more correctly be termed, say, Compression, or Constriction. The theme is that damage is being done by compressing inward. The damage type and the kinds of effects it would have would be typed accordingly. The animation would define telekinetics or a force bubble or nature or even air or water or earth. Anything that can exert the right force would be a candidate.

Moving to the Bladestorm category - which I really love by the way - your bases are once again perfect, nicely opening the realms of what can be a Base and why, and how many directions a base can take. But your theme once again defined concept and visual cues rather than mechanics. The theme would correctly be Blades - just that. The damage is bladed in nature, at range. Unless you want the blades to be unnatural and have unnatural effects, that's all there is to that part of it. A simple adjustment to the standard animation would provide a ghostly blade effect. And as for whether it is telekinetic or magically manifested or whatever the player can imagine, that is exactly where all of that should happen: his imagination. The player's own concept and bio are the final parts of the power set. The fourth component, if you will. How many of us made characters in CoH that took advantage of how certain power sets looked and performed to call them something completely different? I myself planned to adapt either the energy or water set (I wasn't sure which would work best, but I suspect energy) for a living metal man, calling it blasts of liquid metal from his own body. Just a matter of matching his color with the power color. Energy's knockback would have gone very well with the theme that he was actually shooting solid matter. That's the kind of flexibility only the players can give us. Never make the mistake of doing for the player what he can do as well or better himself. Instead, empower him as much as possible, because what he does for himself will always be exactly what he wanted.

The issues with the rest follow the same trends, no need to elaborate. You really are starting to get it though, I really enjoyed reading that post. Just a little further.

TheMadGent wrote:

SiphonWraith wrote:
Also, as far as travel powers, I understand your team is bringing back the favorites; Fly, SJ, SS and possibly TP correct? I was wondering if any one has brought up a "Swing" or "Grapple" type travel power somewhat reminiscent of comic book heroes like Spiderman or Batman/Daredevil? I know I and a few friend from CoX talked about it before and I think one or two of them mentioned it on the forums before but I never heard of anything being set up as a possible Travel Power. Also, what about the possibility of vehicles?

Vehicles have a whole thread here: http://cityoftitans.com/forum/one-sweet-ride
The short version is that they're being looked at, but no guarantees .
In the same thread, it says that they are trying to get a swing/grapple travel power to work, and a parkour type power as well.

We want to make them something unique, special, not swinging just "fly reskinned" or parkour "Superspeed redone." We want them to reflect something better, more interesting and capable. When you swing, we want real physics, where you are attached to the building, and it effects your travel. When you freerun, we want the moves and style of someone hot off the streets of Paris making a mockery of a Pugeot 207:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNBPQe4dFxk

It does seem a bit tricky coming in from a "here's the power we built" perspective, and syncing up with the dev plans for a modular power system. The general feel I'm getting is something akin to some of the older pen-and-paper superhero RPG system, where you have a basic thing and can then add effects to customize it. For example, choosing ranged attack, then defining it as a single bolt (as opposed to a beam) of ice, and further adding the special effects of 'pierces armor' and 'slows target'.

How specific are we looking at, in terms of a Base? For example, is Ranged Damage distinct from Ranged DoT? Or would it be more of an organic flow, like Ranged -> choose between Direct damage/DoT/Control -> choose are-of-effect (single, targeted AOE, cone, etc) -> choose thematically between damage types (ice or electric as opposed to crushing or cutting)?

So for example.. "Base: Ranged, direct, single target. Theme: crushing" would be something like throwing a rock; one hit of blunt-force trauma. "Base: Ranged, DoT, cone. Theme: elemental/fire" would be more like a flamethrower; multiple ticks of heat damage to anyone standing in the fire spray.

And second, in terms of having unnatural effects... what if I wanted my bladestorm to be literal ghost blades, which would partly ignore physical armor? Would it be possible when generating the power to select from a list of 'special effects' like "ignores armor" or "can hit phased enemy" or "vampiric"? Or would that be something that would possibly be a Boost add-on effect later?

Defensive Guard Ability

Example:

Vaidyaila concentrates on awakening the healing power of Manu. Professor Maniacal, having had quite enough interference from the young heroin, decides to raise the odds in his favor by sending a barrage of missiles to take care of the issue. Kaxiya, sensing his loves danger, intercepts himself between her and the incoming attacks. Wings spread wide, he envelopes each individual parcel of death, frying their delicate circuitry and absorbing their payloads within his intense fiery aura.

Not quite sure how this would work out via game mechanics, but I am hoping for a power/skill that allows me to sense and possibly intercept the damage for someone (or group of someones) I am actively guarding. Perhaps via a skill check.

Maybe you start out being able to guard 1 person from a single attack/attacker, and down the line increase either the number of people you can guard, the number of attacks for your single defended target (like the barrage of missiles example), or the number of attackers you can protect your target from. Depending on your skill, you might successfully defend against all incoming attacks , i.e. take the damage yourself, nullify the attack etc. depending on how you "defended", or maybe just most of them with one or more getting through to the original target.

It'd be kinda cool to see Rubber Body as a skill, it could be a pain in the neck to program travel ability, or medium range physical attacks, or wack-a-doodle body re-shaping, akin to Plastic Man. A boat form on water, a wheel to move fast, etc.
Haha on second thought, it would be OP.

Shadow Elusive wrote:

Base--Flight
Theme-- Defense
Animation-- Rolls, Dodges, climbs/dives, etc.
(these maneuvers could have variable degrees in execution based on power level. Quicker rolls and dodges, or steeper degrees of climbs/dives could be attainable to avoid arial attacks)
No no. Something like this would be, perhaps, base Avoidance, theme Acrobatic (you are physically avoiding rather than causing attacks themselves to behave differently in some way to help), with a flight animation.

I have been giving this some thought:
What I envisioned might be considered a physical acrobatic system indeed. My only concern with this is what if I only wanted my character to be this nimble while flying (this is why I suggested it tied to flying as apposed to acrobatics). This way there would be less confusing than say just having the acrobatic theme for avoidance which could mean anything from gymnastics and tumbling to just diving for cover. Perhaps my character is a klutz on the ground and majestically nimble in the air (picture an albatross)
Doe this help explain the Flight base as apposed to the physical avoicance system? Or am I just overcomplicating this?

It sounds like I'll be able to make the Electric Melee with Martial Arts animations I always wanted on CoH. (Electric should still be "Stamina" drain - whatever it winds up being called - but maybe also a bit of health drain - leeching bioelectric energy to heal yourself. It should also have chaining abilities, like Electric Control, Chain Induction from Electrical Melee, Ionic Judgment, many Champions electric attacks, and even Marvel Avengers Alliance's "Static Charge" or "Chain Lighting" in AD&D 2e)

Really, though, I can't think of much that either wasn't already in CoH or about to be in CoH.

If I had to come up with some, I'd like to see some mixed sets. Say, a Ranged Attack variant of weather control (calling down lightning and giant hailstones from above as direct attacks). Perhaps a "Master of Elements" theme that gave you a mix-and-mach set of Earth, Fire, Air and Water attacks. It'd be less "interesting" than the equivalent single-element sets, but the variety of elemental damage types would make up for it. (Or maybe it could be made interesting by making it a choice of four toggles, a la Staff Fighting's three stances)

Yeah. I think that was CoH's big hole, power-wise - as much as I love having a single theme, it didn't do multi-themes well (or, really, at all). But even the multi-themes should be themed.... if that makes any sense. (If it doesn't, chalk it up to me being awake for about twenty-four straight hours as of now. This cold plus NyQuil is doing odd things to my sleep schedule)

I would love the Doctor Octopus arms like in Spiderman 2. The crab spider in CoH did it kind of weakly but was still pretty cool. Maybe some type of backpack that doesn't obscure vision as bad as in CoH, like having the arms pop out of something on the back. Or for magic oriented players it could be like technomancy (Scrap pieces of metal floating up from the ground to resemble the arms).

It would have a pretty awesome travel power too, something like acrobatics from DCUO.

...or slimy tentacles!

I would like the Taunt ability to have several random animations, rather than the "just one" we were stuck with!

"My friend's multilingual... he knows a hundred different ways to flip you off..." ;)

Steve

snate56 wrote:

...or slimy tentacles!
I would like the Taunt ability to have several random animations, rather than the "just one" we were stuck with!
"My friend's multilingual... he knows a hundred different ways to flip you off..." ;)
Steve

Our goal is to allow players to customize power animations.

I would love a melee powerset that worked much like Zangeif's attacks in Street Fighter so that I can apply them to a luchadore =D

Correct me where I'm wrong here Shadow Elusive... It looks like you guys are trying to take a semi linguistic approach to powers by attaching a handful of linguistic modifiers(verb-ish) to some base (noun-ish). Each power object has a base (damage, armor, etc) defined then the modifiers define the effects the power should include.

So a couple of thoughts come to mind. First, is there a tentative Base list? Second, how many effects may be attached to a power? Can these two details change? In other words can a base be allowed to adopt from other bases? Can there be multiple effects? Can more effects compound through Boosts or do they only enhance existing effects?

This is an interesting method for developing the powers. It reminds me of the concept of prefixes and suffixes used by some MMO's for items. It makes a lot of sense and if I'm understanding it correctly I like it but seeing at least a semi-tentative list of some of these details would make power set idea brainstorming a little easier to communicate clearly.

I love developing power-set ideas and always tried to manipulate the COX system as far as I could manage in keeping with my characters concepts.

On another thread some folks were discussing the idea of a matter manipulation set and other ancillary sets or something similar but after reading through this thread it looks like many of those ideas are kinda already part and parcel to the system in development right now. I am taking for granted at this time some general bases are Damage, Ranged Damage, Armor, Construction, ??? not sure what other ones might be arrived at yet but I definitely see a lot of potential in this formula.

My personal idea was related to Boosts. I'm not a crafting person by nature. I find the activity tedious. I'ld rather be out there fighting rather than finding the salvage and miscellany to craft some enhancement. So as an ancillary power-set concept I thought Matter manipulation could have a variety of benefits, defensive, offensive, crafting, etc. Perhaps it is too closely related to teleportation or some quantum concept I don't know, but here is a basic idea based on what I think the new system is like:

Power idea - Matter manipulation (Morphing or constituting from air, etc)
Base: Construction (something along these lines), Ranged
Theme: Matter Constitution (Walls, Boosts, etc. I suppose each item type may need to be a separate power or some way to distinguish between them would be necessary)
Animation: Draw particles together from all directions about the target location until forming the defined object (something like a boost could just auto-populate in storage.

I'm sure this isn't quite right but it is one of many ideas I am playing with.
Thoughts???

Darth Fez wrote:

I'm curious to know where most people stand on the idea that every power set, particularly melee sets, should have access to a ranged attack (or something that is functionally similar).
I am looking this in part from a utility angle, such as pulling mobs or taking down (hopefully!) a runner before they get too far, and having a response to ranged enemies.

Perhaps rather than being part of the power set, it could be a "power" everyone gets Just like brawl or the origin powers in CoH. Everyone could get a token melee and range attacks and through skins you could make it fit your concept (so maybe its a pistol, maybe you throw a rock or a knife). There would be the ability to boost it if desired, or you could just leave it be. It would need a decent range unlike the origin powers but that could give all the people who "need" a ranged attack something, and help out low-level players, especially on damage light archetypes.

Pardon the double post. Figured it'd be easier to give a separate idea its own post.

If there will be any melee sets in TPP that have a knockback element, I feel that this should cause some damage to the mob if it hits something (wall, car, tree, perhaps even other mobs (players?)). I was never a fan of knockback for knockback's sake in melee sets since that meant I was left either chasing after the enemy I'd just hit or had to wait for it to come back. It was annoying enough when team members knocked targets out of range. Doing it to myself was a bit too masochistic.

That raises the big question of how you'd create an engaging game play experience revolving around non-combat powers. Doing a handful of missions revolving around going to a hospital to heal NPCs or putting out fires (like in Steel Canyon, only without the Hellions) could be fun, but as a sustained leveling experience it'd fall flat. I believe even people who don't look for a challenge in video games would quickly come to feel that this is dull and lacks engagement or risk. A viable middle ground could be missions involving saving (read: most likely healing) NPCs, so that there would be the engagement of combat, albeit less of it, while also 'protecting' the hapless citizens.

This is a discussion that would be better suited to [url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/problems-other-mmos]this thread[/url].

i would like to see a super stretch power set. like a blaster tank!

One of my favorite aspects of the Regeneration power set was that it had two or three powers to click. One or two were reactive and one could be used proactively. I found that to be fun and engaging, and it gave me a sense of having more control over my character's fate. I'd wish for most power sets to impart that sensation.

A Whip type class for things like tendrils or chains or whatever else people like. A couple of characters come to mind. (Omega Red, Spawn, Spiderman using his webs to topple crates, etc)

Base - Ranged Brawl/Damage
Theme - Immobilize, crushing damage, makes target throw-able with added impact damage
Animation - Chain tendrils (Like Early Spawn comics), or whips or ??? many come to mind!

Kinetics.

So I suppose you would build it like
Base: Ranged AoE Buff/Debuff
Theme: Drain/Redistribute HP/End/DMG
Animations: Probably cooler than CoH's Kinetics.

(Am I doing it right?)

My question is, a lot of sets (like Kin) have a lot of different effects at different power levels, but this seems like the Theme will be throughout the power set, rather than individually; if that's the case, could you even have a Kinetics-like set? Fulcrum Shift was one of the most fun powers in the game, and not neccessarily from the perspective of power level (though it -was- awesome) but from the idea that you were weakening the enemy and strengthening yourself/the team; even the earlier single-target power drain was a lot of fun. But the set also had the useful Transfusion, Inertial Reduction, Repel, and the like, which all had VASTLY different effects.

And Kinetics Corruptors hit like trucks, but that's besides the point.

Also, what if we want to make a character that does a lot of things at once? Lots of archery-type heroes/villians are definitely Base: Ranged and Animation: Archery but their secondary effects change per-arrow. And that's an important thing to keep. Maybe I want to replicate the feel of a corruptor's Ice Blast set, where they had a couple utility powers in the set (the holds). Maybe I want to make a Energy Ranged that largely does knockDOWN but does have one solid long-distance low-damage knockBACK.

Telekinesis please :)

I would love a Mastermind like pet summon power that you could customize the appearance of the pets. I've always wanted a mini goblin army for Goblin Queen. That and whip mastery with customizable whip types.

it wasn't abuse that restricted MM pet customability, it was the fact that it would have required a major overhaul of the costume creator and would further increase the server resources used by MM who were already the biggest hog.

A thing I never liked in CoH was the limited customization of Masterminds. You could pick what you summoned.. but that was it and that also determined what YOU used as well.. really sucked for my idea of a Power Armored villain summoning forces from beyond the grave (..necromancy made you use magic, robots made you use tech..).

The other thing I hated was that Henchmen did ALL the work and you basically sat back and buffed em and were done.

I think there should be an option for whatever class is MMesque to choose both what henchmen/support people they summon AND their own power set and secondary power set. What makes this class balanced would be that the MM gets less powers for him/herself (half the powers are for him/her and half are for the summons). Let's say there's 20 total, so 5 from primary powerset. 5 from secondary powerset and 10 for the summons. Take my character Lord Nightmare in consideration.. using this system.

He'd be a MM Magic Style summoning Darkness Theme minions which would be customized to look like Shades. Darkness would be a debuffing choice, lowering attack and resistance of enemies while dealing a moderate amount of damage and maybe even healing the user (..I really liked Darkness from CoH, does it show?).

This synergizes with Nightmare himself who would use Magic Style Attacks of an Energy Theme and Magic Style attacks of a Darkness Theme as his secondary powerset. Energy would be a theme that does the same amount of damage as other themes and has more critical hit severity (Maybe about 1.5x the normal crit severity) but gets crits a lot less often (half the normal chance? Let's say most powers usually have a 20% chance.. it'd have 10%). In a battle, Nightmare would buff his minions who would debuff the enemy, lowering their resistances to his attacks.

He'd also be Debuffing the enemy, perhaps draining a bit of life from them to make up for damage taken.. and finally when he's satisfied, give a nice big Energy Beam to the face and take them down. Of course, thanks to the balances made by you guys, this would probably take about... eh.. 45 seconds for a group of on-level Henchies? A minute for the next tier and so on.

Hell, Energy and Darkness themes working just like that for any powerset would be fine. Would be a good tool to make Nightmare as a NON-MM (Corruptor probably, just like he was in CoV)