IzzySoft

Originally Posted by JayboH

That's because they are. They did a VERY good job on the VEATs. I have always thought the inherent weakness to Kheldians gimmick should have been scrapped after ED hit.

Originally Posted by BrandX

Everyone mentions the HEATS and VEATS as hybrid ATs.

As such, with the coming of a new costume pack, and having the abilities already in place...maybe it's time for a new Epic AT!

The Gunslinger!

Dual Pistols/Street Justice/Martial Arts Hybrid Primary with Defensive Secondary Tree!

There we go! It's something we like and something that can easily be balanced and worth having, seeing as how I can make a Crab do close to the same thing without it being considered OP but not have Dual Pistol action!

Keep the Dual Pistol animations we have now, combine it with various hand to hand moves from Street Justice and Martial Arts, but lose the combo system of Street Justice, but allow the pistols to remain drawn during those hand to hand moves.

Originally Posted by Schismatrix

Fortunately variations on this idea have been proposed at least five times in the past year alone, so they've has plenty of chances to look at it.
This proposal is actually one of the less fleshed-out proposals i've seen. Some of the other proposals have actually crunched out the numbers to a far greater degree. The problem, as has already been mentioned in this thread, is that powers are balanced against each other within a set far more than they are balanced against powers in other sets or by tier. So either every set available to the AT would have to be tweaked for balance (which would be an example of non-trivial computation) or the suggestion of adding lower caps would need to be used. Lower caps would mostly result in an AT that would have mediocre performance on teams in every role compared to every other AT.

It's not impossible to balance all the set combinations, but even just working with two types of sets, like ranged and buff/debuff, it would probably be more work than creating a new AT from scratch. Doing it for every AT would be as much work as creating the same number of ATs.

Kheldians were pretty much an early attempt at doing something like this by combining powers from multiple sets and ATs with some new powers thrown in, but were so heavily nerfed that Peacebringers are still average after multiple buffs to the AT. Warshades are actually quite powerful when played to their strengths, but their power is fairly situational.

Anyway, it's an interesting idea, but not likely to happen. We're far more likely to get a new AT with branching sets like the VEATS or new sets that allow you to change attack damage/debuff/mez types like Dual Pistols and Staff Melee do.

Originally Posted by _Ail_

The OP should try Champions Online I think. It will give the flexibility they seem to want with the Gold (or whatever they call it...paying) subscription level. You can mix and match to your hearts content.

It would be too dramatic a change for CoX to do it very free form, and anyway as others have pointed out CoX already has hybrids in most of the Villain ATs and the Epics. And many of the Hero ATs like Controllers can be played as hybrids in any case.

In short, it is a terrible idea IMO and as others have said would waste countless hours of dev time in order to make it so that you can have a more overpowered character when we can already have ridiculously overpowered characters.

One of the main faults of CO IMO was how free form it was. You could have all of your essential powers by the mid 20s and then after that you just rounded off things by cherry picking the standard overpowered buffs and additional abilities from different frameworks to make sure you were the ultimate tank/mage/buffer. This led to a homogenization of the powers because that was the only effective way to balance them.

AT setups (i.e., classes) actually tend to lead to a greater variety in powers and abilities because powersets only need to be balanced vs other powersets. If you have a free form system, you need to balance individual abilities against other individual abilities, and this is much harder and inevitably leads to a homogenization of the abilities. So if you are balancing powerset vs powerset, you can have a set with some real overpowered abilities in it and still have it roughly balanced against another set even if they are not balanced on an ability-by-ability basis. Witness lots of fighting games for examples of this.

This is something many free form people can't seem to get their head around: That by advocating a free form system they are also simultaneously actually giving themselves less options because things will get homogenized in the name of balance.

Originally Posted by SinisterDirge

... I would much rather see completely new power sets than an AT that rehashes what we have already.

Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect

I'll bite. I've demonstrated just how stupidly powerful you can make things if you were allowed to combine sets before.

Brute:

Street Justice/Super Strength
1) Initial Strike
2) Heavy Blow
3) Sweeping Cross
4) Combat Readiness
5) KO Blow
6) Taunt
7) Rage
8) Shin Breaker
9) Foot Stomp

Fiery Aura/Shield Defense

1) Deflection
2) Battle Agility
3) Healing Flames
4) Active Defense
5) Against All Odds
6) Phalanx Fighting
7) Burn
8) Fiery Embrace
9) Rise of the Phoenix

See the problem there? Those 2 combinations would be insanely powerful, and you would have to nerf the individual powers into near uselessness to make it even in the neighborhood of balanced.

And that's one of hundreds of overpowered combinations. The powers in the game are not balanced in a vacuum, they are balanced by what else is available in the powersets they are found in. Rage and Foot Stomp Being available with a fast animating fury builder chain (Street Justice powers) means you get the AoE power of Super Strength, and Rage, and it eliminates SS's weak spot, which is it's single target attack chain.

Then when you add the possibility of having Against All Odds and Fiery Embrace available in the same set, with Rage fueling it as well? Oh, and a damage aura, Burn, the ease of soft-capping Shield Defense, and the self-heal of Fire?

No, that wouldn't be overpowered at all.

Originally Posted by Matuse

Read what he wrote more carefully. He didn't say Scrappers would take Super Strength as their bonus bit, he said ALL SCRAPPERS WOULD BE DELETED AND REMADE AS BRUTES, who would then take Super Strength.

And he's probably right.

Originally Posted by Bright_Tempest

...so i doubt either would ever acutally see the light of day

Originally Posted by SinisterDirge

Did Zwill amalgamate suggestions and archetypes and not leave a memo?

Originally Posted by Bright_Tempest

I had something like this in mind a while ago, but never posted it, not quite sure of the 'balance' issues and whatnot, it went something like exchanging powers for powers, here's what I wrote (modified for post-inherent fitness):

Power set diversification. I’d like to think this is an acceptable alternate to Proliferation. It works on the concept of ‘tags’ and ‘exchange points’.
The best way to describe the system; is to do so by example, so, let’s start out by creating a new character. We’ll make our new character like we normally do, costume, power selection, ECT… when we’re done our new toon will be set up:

Mucho-Kin
Fire/Kin Controller
- Fire Control Set
- Char
- Kinetics Set
- Transfusion

Now, we play Much-Kin normally for 20 levels, (please note, that lvl20 is, were we can start to earn hero points – if you have GR). And, he’ll look something like this:
Mucho-Kin
Fire/Kin Controller
- Fire Control Set
- Char
- Fire Cages
- Hot Feet
- Cinders

- Kinetics Set
- Transfusion
- Siphon Power
- Siphon Speed
- Speed Boost

- Super Speed Set
- Hasten


Now, Mucho-Kin’s player isn’t too fond of the way things are shaping up. He’s getting in deep with the tanks and feeling a lack of oomph while standing there toe to toe with the bad-guys. So, Mucho-Kin, partakes on some Hero Tip missions, enough to gain himself a handful of hero points (say, 5 or 10 or 30 or whatever)… and he heads off to get himself a ‘exchange point’ from Fort Trident.

Now, the way ‘Exchange Points’ work is fairly straight forward, one point, allows you to exchange one power for another, like a mini /respec. But, the kicker here is, it will allow you to do exchange one power for another across archetypes and power sets, as long as the ‘power tags’ match.
Power Tags, another simple concept. Power Tags group powers, like, Kinetics would be tagged, Kinetic. As would Kinetic Melee. Fire Control would be tagged Fire, as would, Fiery Assault, Fire Armor, Fire Melee, and Fire Blast. True, there are some powers that are unique, such as radiation and illusion… but, one would have to take that into consideration at character creation time. (Please note, only primary and secondary powers have tags… the ancillary sets and epics do not). Each Character only has access to a maximum of two tag groups, (again, primary and secondary) so, once a fire/kin always a fire/kin ...

So, when Mucho-Kin, opens up his ‘power exchange dialogue box’ it would show something like this:

Exchange points: 1 Available power sets: 2 (Fire/Kinetic)
Current Sets: 2
- Fire Control
- Kinetics

Available Power Sets: 5
- Fiery Melee
- Fiery Blast
- Kinetic Melee
- Fiery Assault
- Fiery Armor

Because he’s on the front lines, Mucho-Kin’s player feels like getting in some damage, so he opts to select Kinetic Melee. Under kinetic Melee, he can only pick the level one power (it is a pre-requisite). And, he chooses to exchange his Fire Cages power for the Kinetic Melee level one Body Blow power. Since Kinetics is his secondary power set, any and all Kinetic powers he chooses would be treated as a secondary power in game. His statistics would now look like:
Mucho-Kin
Fire/Kin Controller
- Fire Control Set
- Char
- Hot Feet
- Cinders

- Kinetics Set
- Transfusion
- Siphon Power
- Siphon Speed
- Speed Boost

- Kinetic Melee Set
- Body Blow

- Super Speed Set
- Haste

There is nothing saying that at level 22 Mucho-kin couldn’t re-select the Fire Cages power, and he probably would, considering that is one of the fire kintroller’s mainstays.
Also, we should talk about pre-requisites. Each power set has, prerequisites (that’d be the level one powers we –have- to take now). These cannot be traded off for other powers. Also, just because a power crosses Archetypes, doesn’t mean that the toon will be massively uber. Mucho-kin here; is still a Controller. Melee attacks from a controller are –not- something to be feared. I’d also like to consider a limiter, something like once you choose a ‘tag’ to start trading on, you cannot choose the other. In essence, that would leave you with a primary super power, a secondary, a tertiary and finally, your ancillary power sets.

(Sorry, didn't mean to steal the post... now back to our regular posting... feel free to chop it to bits)

BT

Originally Posted by TheBruteSquad

Talen's right. It would be a lot of work for very little gain. Balance would be almost impossible without stupidly heavy nerfage or restrictions - and if you're going to heavily nerf/restrict it, why put the system in?

All brutes would do well to splash superstrength for rage and footstomp, (or katana/broadsword for parry).
All defenders would do well to splash traps for Forcefield generator.
All controllers would do well to spash illusion for phantom army.
All blasters would do well to splash ice for Blizzard.
All scrappers would do well to reroll as brutes, so they can splash Rage and Footstomp.
All tankers would do well to reroll as brutes, so they can splash Rage and Footstomp. After all, they're the only AT being denied the ability to take two of their primary.
All masterminds would do well to grab one of the level 18 pseudo-pets (gang war, etc).

Slapping a buff/debuff meter or damage meter into the system would force the devs to quantify powers. How do they figure out what is worth what? Rage on any melee is worth any price of admission - how can it be compared with Chain Induction (another same tier power)?

Originally Posted by Talen Lee

Sure. And in the exploration we find more ways people can make bad charactesrs and a small handful of ways people can make overpowered characters and a lot of work required to make it possible, all on the wrong forum.

Well, that was some fun exploring.

Originally Posted by DreadShinobi

My Hybrid AT:

Primary: (Ranged Blaster damage mods, Melee Scrapper damage mods, Brute damage cap)
Winning Blast Melee
T1) Incinerate
T2) Blaze
T3) Fire Ball
T4) Greater Fire Sword
T5) Soul Drain
T6) Rain of Fire
T7) Seeds of Confusion
T8) Foot Stomp
T9) Psychic Shockwave

Secondary: (Defender buff mods)
Winning Manipulation
T1) Transfusion
T2) Speed Bosst
T3) Time's Juncture
T4) Indomitable Will
T5) Lingering Radiation
T6) Farsight
T7) Sleet
T8) Heat Loss
T9) Fulcrum Shift

Originally Posted by BrandX

The idea is simple. He wants branching tree's for the Primary Powersets, so you can go...

Katana + Street Justice/Whatever Scrapper

Fire Armor + Ice Armor/Whatever Tanker

Dark Miasma + Thermal Radiation/Whatever Defender

ect...ect...

Basically a way to add more concepts by allowing multiple choices of the Primary Power Set.

Originally Posted by Talen Lee

Could you try being far, far less cute, a lot more straightforwards and think your idea through a little more?

Originally Posted by Yoru-Hime

Have you really tried building a few characters like this? It seems fun for a scrapper or blaster, but that's not where it gets overpowered. The buff/debuff characters are the ones that are going to turn into demigods like this unless you just utterly gut the powers. Then all you end up with is Peacebringers.