Balanced

Really? People are having trouble with the Panther 952 mission on base difficulty? Something screwy must be happening to you guys; my empath has no trouble soloing it at that setting. I mean, sure, it's Malta, and the spawns are pretty quick, but there's only two at a time. The only thing I find really annoying in it are the Ops Engineers--Frostfire always seems to wind up in a corner somewhere, obsessing over a handful of auto turrets, while I kill the boss. It was tough, but doable, at x0/+3; I had to burn a few inspirations.

There's definitely something wrong with the boss spawns, though. What I've seen is specific to the Greater Devoured bosses; they always spawn as bosses, no matter what your settings are. Did the devs forget to make a lieutenant version of them or something?

All the other spawn-as-lieutenant mobs seem to be correct; remember that it doesn't change the mob's powers, it just downgrades their stats. A lieutenant Master Illusionist still spawns 3 Illusionist lieutenant decoys, a Phantasm, and a Dark Servant, so she's still really nasty, but she has less mez protection, lower damage, and lower hit points.

I've bought all the boosters so far, and various item packs as well, but I'm going to pass on this one. There's just not enough there for me.

I thought it was going to be an invitation to create a set of themed player characters specific to an arc, like making a team of lowbie Scooby Gang homages to play an arc suited to the theme (like Mercedes Lackey's guest author arc, or an arc custom-designed for the theme).

...and now that example makes me want them to add the ability to make custom temp powers for AE missions, like a "Scooby Snacks" power that lets you buff someone with fear protection.

I've been enjoying Sidekick Girl. The art is pretty weak, but I like the sidekick perspective and the twists on superhero tropes. It reminds me a bit of The Tick in some ways, with sidekicks often doing the real work, but getting treated as second-class citizens. It doesn't rely entirely on that schtick, however--some of the heroes are quite effective, and at least one is both effective and nice.

What, no card for Weyland-Yutani?

Not as big a loss as some of you are talking about, but I lost an attached LotG Recharge recipe overnight.

I kind of like the new artwork. The whole game is leaning a bit away from pink mohawks and toward mirrored shades, and I think the art supports it. Since that's always been my favored approach, SR4A suits me well enough. (The artist who did the weapon specialist portrait might be a bit too interested in Claudia Black, but that's another matter.)

Art aside, I love the master index. It's handy when you play a character built from rules scattered across at least three books.

For ranged Ice powers (blasts, mezzes, shields--whatever can be applied at range), I think alternate animations involving liquid water would be nice. Block of Ice, for example, would get a column of water rushing up around the target and solidifying into the block. The ice shields could be similar. Some of the blasts could feature a stream of water from the caster to the target that freezes as it hits.

I do like this idea in principle. Designing it to be both fair and fun would be a major challenge, however. There's a bit of this with the temp powers in the Barracuda Strike Force, but you're talking about actually separating the team, which takes things to a whole new level.

Let's look at some possible challenges for hero ATs first.

Tank:
This one is pretty straightforward. The tank's role is to run a diversion, pulling attention away from one or more other members of the team, or an NPC. My suggested encounter would be with a really big set of destructible doors and a bunch of (relatively) weenie mobs. The tank breaks down the front door while the rest of the team is sneaking in. (Bonus points if it happens on a narrow bridge over a chasm.) Maybe have doppelgangers of the teammates moving slowly through the encounter, and if the doppelgangers draw aggro, the rest of the team gets hit with an ambush.

Blaster:
Destroy something at range. Maybe the Blaster's route leads to a gun nest overlooking a courtyard surrounded by power-suppression projectors. The projectors can't be reached from below, and will make the team easy prey for the other machine gun nests/turrets. The Blaster is outside the field and must take out the projectors (and maybe the turrets) in order for the team to progress. The turrets can target the Blaster, so he'll need to use the cover of the nest to protect himself.

Controller:
There's a deadly (or just impassable), indestructible guardian blocking the way forward (giant robot, irradiated lizard, whatever). Fortunately, it's not invulnerable to mezzes (though it has some protection against them). The controller's route leads into a tunnel with a small grate providing access to the guardian's chamber. The guardian must be controlled for the team to proceed (hold, sleep, stun, or confuse).

Scrapper:
Kill stuff. The scrapper faces a gauntlet of the Big Bad's lieutenants (which are bosses/elite bosses) alone. Any that the scrapper doesn't kill will ambush the team--simultaneously--during the fight with the Big Bad.

Defender:
Here's the fly in the ointment. Defenders do different things, and they do them in more wildly different ways than the other ATs, so it's hard to come up with a one-size-fits-all challenge for them. The obvious choice is to have the Defender covering an NPC while the NPC does something else that takes time. The problem is making it possible for any Defender combo to do it without making it trivial. You can't require healing, or any particular type of buff or debuff.

The best I can come up with offhand is a series of ambushes coming after an NPC, balanced so that the NPC loses health steadily if unprotected. If the NPC's health drops below X%, he turns to fight or teleports away, and will start the task over when the current ambush is defeated or when his health returns to full. While working on the task, the NPC emits regular (but not overlapping) taunt pulses that cover the whole area. The Defender can protect him with buffs, with healing, by debuffing the ambushers, distracting the mobs between taunt pulses, or defeating or neutralizing the mobs. The Defender needs to reduce incoming damage to the NPC by 50% in order for the NPC to complete the task without being distracted.

Other pitfalls--

Obviously, if the team is missing an AT, there needs to be a way to bypass that AT challenge. That could present a way to cheese the system. What if you take an all-Defender team into the TF? You eliminate 4 out of 5 challenges.

What about extra members of an AT? What does the second defender do, for example, or the off-tank?

What about Kheldians? What's their job in this? They're designed, in theory, for versatility more than for a specific role.

Random thought--

Another touch I'd like to see in this: the TF contact accompanies you on the final mission, and provides the dialog options to split the team up in the mission map. Perhaps the contact is even the NPC the Defender has to protect.

Very, very nice. I probably would have bought the Mutant pack anyway, but this certainly clinches it.

If possible, I'd stick with Balanced. If he needs a fixed in-game location, he probably belongs in the hospital in Dark Astoria.

As for a signature power--with a name like Balanced, what could it be besides [Nerf Bat]?

Edit: As for a role in the company, as opposed to the game--maybe I'd be in charge of purpleizing prose, copy-editing, generating and continuity-checking lore, and otherwise hassling the writers.

Two of my favorite useless things to do involve Telekinesis:

Drum Majoring--Go to PI and wipe out all the Nemesis in a spawn except one soldier. Slap TK on him, and float him around, triggering civilians' "flee in panic" mode. Herd them up into a whole parade of running civvies in front of the hapless marching-band-attired minion.

Mob Piñata--Go to a lower-level zone and TK a lieutenant from one of the red areas. Float him back to an area where lowbies hang out and pin him against something. Stand next to him with an AFK message inviting people to take a swing at him. When someone defeats him, announce that some candy fell out, and pass out medium and large inspirations to everyone nearby.

Others have said all this, I think, so consider this post an endorsement:

Houses. Schools. Playgrounds. Libraries. Gas stations. Grocery stores. A mall. Little cafés with civilians sitting at faux-wrought-iron tables outside. Places where people live and do things besides walk around and get mugged.

The Faultline revamp got a lot of things right in this regard, but it needs to be pushed farther and spread to other zones. Have those buildings Brad hates so much leveled in a Rikti raid or something, and build a library or museum on one and a school on the other. Yes, I know there are only two children in Paragon City, but there were both male and female civilians around right after the war; even if all the kids were evacuated during the war, there will be new school-age children by now, so make some to populate a school. (Just please, please find some way to not make them look like the Baby New Year abomination.)

Quietly replace some buildings in Dark Astoria with abandoned housing developments--little neighborhoods full of brick or wood-frame houses. Put swing sets in some of the yards, and make the swings swing on their own sometimes. Abandoned houses are a lot creepier than yet another looming office building in the fog. Swap some of the remaining buildings for more Gothic-looking models, with gargoyle rainspouts and such. You don't even have to provide an explanation--most people will have never seen those buildings before. It's a perfect place to experiment, and could use a revamp and some content, anyway. (Maybe we can get them to add a TF that will drive back the Pantheon briefly, and lift the fog for a while, so we can see the changes.)