You should allow at least minor access to off-class powersets. So what if some controller wants to de-buff enemies as well as regenerate? Should it be limited by the game's predisposition as to which powersets are compatible or not? So what if a character wants to live for his sword AND his gun, at the expense of damage mitigation? I'm not even advocating full customization, I just think that the most diverse characters could be had by not limiting the choice of secondary powerset by the choice of primary powerset. What people would realize soon is that the most useful endgame or grouping abilities are not necessarily the most useful solo abilities and would respec or create an alt if they're unable to adapt a character to both roles. However, a suitably versatile character, or a character with suitably specced support, could do both! What could it possibly hurt your game to give players the abilities to make a couple judgment calls for themselves and not just fit their pegs into one of your predetermined holes.
In CO I made a jedi character, with a blaster, rope-swinging, but a mostly laser-sword, lightning, and force-choke offense, with agility and the like for defense, and had a lot of fun and immersion.
In CO I made a character based off Uriah Heep's "Rainbow Demon" that "lived for his sword and his gun" and was not restricted to either mode of attack exclusively.
In CO I made a character "The Ionic Column" who was very adept at buffing/debuffing as well as damage mitigation to himself, who was the optimal tank because of the aggro his AoE buffs drew.
In CO I made a character "The White Giantess" who utilized melee abilities from several different skillsets as well as gadgets to achieve a huge increase in size during long battles, which was both extremely useful and kinda hot. It drew from 4+ skillsets to achieve its perfection.
All of these builds would be discouraged by a CoX type mechanic that strictly limits power progression based on artificial limits to available power choice. What does CoT have to gain by limiting power progression in a similar manner? Just let people do what they will, and balance issues can sort themselves out over playtesting and patches.
This is what the (epic) power pools in CoX allowed... not just for travel powers, but to also fill in gaps/fill out concepts. Granted this is to a greater or lesser degree, all dependant on *what* you were trying to achieve.
Are the ones that you made in CO, freeform builds or are they done with an AT that even silver players can access?
I know that MWM are planning more to disconnect the *look* of the power from *what* the power does, so a burning ranged attack is not just a thrown fireball, but it could also be fire breathing... the choice of appearance is up to you.
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It's not so much a matter of "allow" as having the resources to make available within a given time frame.
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Ah yes.. I love that chart. Something that I've been seriously excited for is the Assault sets. If I may, I'll approach your concepts and apply them into the chart and see if MWM breaks those possibilities.
Taking the jedi concept I'll go a few places on this... Since point-of-origin and animation are independent of mechanics, and assault sets from CoH were modeled to have both melee and ranged attacks, I could use a sword for my melee attacks and a force/lightning effects on the ranged attacks and achieve this style of customizability. Granted this chart says Assault will "never" (in quotes because even in coh never wasn't always never) happen, a jedi could be rounded off with super reflexes primary to be a Bastion, as a Brigadier (oh snap spelling error) one could use gravity control or mind control for similar results of jedi mind tricks and/or telekinesis.
a trick-arrow style support coupled with a sword/gun assault set would make a fairly offensively driven gadgety "rainbow demon" concept.
The Giantess would likely fit into the Striker with some super strength and devices, with the only limit as to how exactly you'd make the character larger. If the entire purpose is to get large size buffs, there might be something with animation effects for defenses that open up your options completely to anything that has a defense set.
The only model that I can't assign into the sets already defined or open for definition is that Ionic Column character, since there's nothing that has defense/support as an option. The closest would likely be a Warden with both support and manipulation options.
Looking at the options of structured AT classifications vs complete freeform I remember the serious drawbacks with CO on its initial attempt before even they went to structured ATs. A new player would read Incandescent as the base stat for a fire hero, then start taking fire powers, but suddenly realize it doesn't have the mitigation of a fire scrapper or fire tank. It wasn't really freeform, it just let you pick from anything and had the earliest of Linux's style of "good luck figuring out decent balance!" That freeform style was seen again in TSW and STO and both times it results in "be all 3: damage/tank/heals" for solo play and teaming is fairly unfriendly unless there's enough mess to need multiple players to deal with multiple targets.
I like that CoT is approaching class-lines with a structured blur like Rift and Everquest Next have and will respectively. The roles stay defined, as few or as many as they want, and expand the classes into other roles to do a little bit more here and a little bit more there, like those mastery sets from 41-50 in CoH. just my $0.02
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Also dont forget the plan to have Tertiary sets that are limited versions (4 powers) of the Primary/Secondary sets.
So if Im a Stalwart (Def/Mel) character I can chose a number of Tertiary Sets with limited options for Ranged Damage/Support/Control/Pets(?)
Example: Stalwart
Primary: Evade Set (8 power choices)
Secondary: Burning Set (8 power choices)
Tertiary 1: Ranged Damage Set 1 (4 power choices)
Tertiary 2: Control Set (4 power choices)
Tertiary 3: Pet set (4 power choices)
...
Tertiary 8: Ranged Damage Set 3 (4 power choices)
...
From memory they weren't going to limit the number of Tertiary sets at all, only limit the number of actual powers so if you wanted you could take the minimum number of Pri/Sec powers needed and fill out the rest of your character by using Tertiary sets, even if you only took 1 power from each Tertiary.
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
Hopefully CoT won't limit Tertiary sets will be both worthwhile and not limited in animations. Was always the worst thing about CoH. Get up to Epic pools to round out concepts, but the concept powers where basically useless (or ugly) :/
Only Power that was universally accepted as being OMG Beautiful was [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Soul_Mastery#Soul_Storm]Soul Storm[/url] for its visual+audio FX and animations. I was also quite partial to [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Soul_Mastery#Moonbeam]Moonbeam[/url] as well for visual+audio FX and animations too.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
It was! I recall making the trip red side with some of my heroes just because that power fit their concept and was so pretty!
For those of you who didn't play City of Heroes and don't know what we're talking about with Soul Storm ... [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUVWnMAT5xg]Samuraiko Productions[/url] has you covered (Soul Storm can be seen, although not heard, at 3m33s)!
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
It's powers like that, that I hope they're able to keep all animations open for powers that would fit it!
Maybe I have just one fire blast! Maybe I liked the look of Blaze over Fireball! Let me pick please!