Samuel_Tow

Not really. I just find another team, because I'm clearly not needed on that one.

I disagree with this completely, and if that's what Stalkers end up, I can safely say I would never make another one. And that's not a "threat." This is simply not the AT I want to play, nor indeed the AT I signed up for when I made my Stalkers. I picked Stalkers because they're damage dealers, and whether they're better than Scrappers or not, that's what their primary focus is, and in my opinion should be.

In my opinion, Stalkers should rely less on "support" and more on being melee damage dealers. If that takes a better damage mod, I can live with it. If that takes better stealthing tools, all the better. But I don't want to see Stalkers hang back and debuff like they're a melee Defender. There's a reason I've never supported the Melee/Support AT ideas - because I despise the concept in general.

What I want to see out of Stalkers is what you saw John Rambo do in Rambo 2, where he takes out an entire platoon of soldiers by himself. What I want to see out of Stalkers is what the Shadow does to goons routinely.

In essence, I don't want a Stalker that's always hiding. I want a Stalker that's constantly attacking out of hiding.

Those should have easy solutions. Point for point:

If recharge is a problem and a specific uptime has to be enforced (I envision 50/50 so as to not slant participation, but I can see 60/40 in favour of melee to account for some buffer before it drops), then the simple solution is to make these powers unaffected by recharge. Toggles provide constant protection, these provide semi-constant protection. If we can set them all on Auto, that'd be the best.

If animation time is a problem, then these powers don't need to have rooting animations, only visual effects, if that. Precedent for this already exists in the form of Temporary Invulnerability. This is a power that, while it has an animation, this animations can be interrupted by OTHER POWERS.

If anything, the actual act of clicking too many clicks too often would probably be the problem, which is why such an AT would probably need some kind of additional quality of life improvement to the effect of a macro "powexec_name power 1$$powexec_name power 2$$powexec_name power 3" That you could either spam, hold or just single-click that would activate all of your clicks. Possibly an inherent power of some sort.

The reason is that we'll be clicking things every 60 seconds or so (30 up, 30 down), and that can get overwhelming when you have three or four things to click, so an easier solution is necessary. I don't want to go with a higher cycle time, either, nothing like 2 minutes up, 2 minutes down because I'm looking to swap stances in the middle of a fight, not alternate between fights. Being able to alternate between fights just makes one approach superior, and I want BOTH to be useful and both to actually be used.

Two points:

1. It says "Miss" and the system message is "but you missed." That's about as close to "you suck so you missed" as it gets.

2. Random missing in general is like introducing fumbles in a soccer game or weapon jams in UT3. Yes, these things might happen in real life, for as far as games are like real life, but they're the sort of things we DON'T WANT to happen.

You can just as easily argue that we should have a chance to trip over and fall on our faces. I mean, it happens. YouTube is full of incredibly talented athletes fumbling their feet and dropping on their ***** accidentally, but does anyone actually believe that this should be part of the game?

Let me put it this way - if I can accidentally miss a clear, easy shout because-because, does that logic not also follow that I should have a chance to accidentally drop my gun? Or a chance to accidentally bump into a wall and fall down? Or a chance to accidentally twist my ankle? Or a chance to accidentally pull a muscle, suffering damage and debilitating effects? Or a chance to suffer a stroke or an aneurysm? These things happen all the time, especially under the physical and mental stress of combat, but we generally don't want to see them in our games.

3. More than a couple, as it turns out... Acceptable breaks from reality. If we can believe that our characters never have to pee and poo on-screen, that eldritch abominations speak perfect English, that we can drop off the top of the Empire State building and survive, that people can run without tripping over, then why is it so hard to believe that people don't miss unless their target is somehow protected?

And again - what part of a crate of books did a high explosive grenade miss?

You know when I fell in love with the old Teen Titans cartoon? When I saw Robin clinging to a ceiling upside down like he were the God Damn Spier-Man. He has no reason to do this. He doesn't cling to walls, he doesn't have sticky shoes, he doesn't have super powers. He was just hanging upside down on a ceiling because it looked cool. Because he's just that cool.

People keep bringing up this argument that "well there's always random chance." Maybe. But that's not cool for a fictional universe. When did Alucard screw up and miss because he sucked? If he did, I don't remember it, because he doesn't suck. Some vampires have been able to dodge his billets, sure, but that's not because he's missing through bad luck, it's because the vampires are dodging.

That's all I'm saying. You shouldn't miss an enemy unless the enemy has some skill in avoidance or deflection. I don't have a problem if most enemies did - at least it would make sense. But doors, crates and lab equipment do not have skills in evasion or deflection, or at the very least they shouldn't be. How much do I need to suck to swing at a door and MISS?

I don't have a problem with them hitting all the time. I don't see why this has to extend to them missing all the time.

What... Are you talking about? All three sets have the same amount of AoE. Broadsword has Slice, Whirling Sword and Head Splitter, Battle Axe has Whirling Axe, Cleave and Pendulum and War Mace has Whirling Mace, Shatter and Crowd Control. Only Pendulum and Crowd Control are wider-cone, higher-damage powers than Slice, and both Shatter and Cleave deal more scale damage than Head Splitter. Well, at least Cleave does, I don't know so much about Shatter.

Also, "has nothing to do with aesthetics" is not an argument when you're looking at changing the core design of existing powersets and redefining their purpose. You can't just change this because it looks good and leave two versions of the same set, originally designed to fit different weapons but now having the same weapon in them. An for what? It'd be worse than when Broadsword and Katana had the same animations. Remember how much people complained then?

Check your facts, please. Each Battle Axe power other than Swoop has 0.67 scale knockback in it. Swoop has... I don't remember how much scale knockup on it. The set has knockback, it's just intentionally lower-mag. Knockdown IS knockback. If you want to make petty semantic arguments, ensure they are true first.

Either quote me or stop trying to retell what I said. I never said they were too different in their animations, I said they were too different in their EFFECTS, let alone power names, and I was specifically targetting Mace vs. Sword, because the original argument was Mace/Sword/Axe. As Leo mentions, the different weapons have different visual effects and visual sounds, and they also have different names. Even something as simple as Whirling Sword vs. Whirling Axe. I realise that's already somewhat broken by our ability to replace Thunder Kick with a punch, but that just means I want to see the power itself renamed.

Furthermore, my actual argument, if you'd bothered to read it instead of focusing on insulting my intelligence, was that you can't have two sets that are copies of the same thing but with different powers. That's *** backwards design, not to mention a terrible precedent. Suppose I want to use Radiation Blast with the Energy Blast animations? They're practically the same thing, right? Blasts of energy. Radiation is energy, after all, isn't it?

This is not the Champions system where you pick a power and then apply an element or weapon to it. In this system, weapons are baked into powers. If you pick a sword power, you use a sword with it. That way, it's animation can more closely match how a sword is used, instead of being boring and generic such that it can be used with a sword, axe, mace, sharpened stick, large bone or a small child. I'd like my sword attacks to stab, and you can't stab with a small child. Its chin doesn't get sharp enough until puberty.

So much for Mace not being part of the suggestion.

Has it occurred to you that War Mace deals smashing damage, the kind of damage that's good against robots but poor against plants? You know, the exact opposite of what a bladed weapon usually is? A bladed weapon is good at cutting, preferably cutting soft targets, which is what it excels at. Carnival of Shadows, Devouring Earth, Knives of Artemis. By contrast, the heavy concussive damage of the Mace is better against hard armoured targets such as robots and large stone creatures. Your imagination might stretch far enough to ignore consistency, but I prefer to know what an axe is good for and what it isn't without it swapping on me from set to set.

Furthermore, while parrying with an axe is possible, it just looks silly. And, yes, this is an aesthetic argument, but don't you think there's a reason that neither Battle Axe nor War Mace have that animation? Because I do.

And again - we don't need three instances of the same set.

They very much are. Broadsword makes a cutting sound on most of its attacks and sends metallic sparks flying around. Battle Axe makes a tearing sound an sends yellow sparks flying around. War Mace makes a dull impact sound and I don't believe it has any sparks at all. You can easily ignore these, I guess, but I don't want to. I prefer my sets to be distinct. I like to see the red pillar of pain and know this is a sword. Even if we get the ability to customize the colour of the red pillar of pain into a blue pillar of pain, I know this is Head Splitter or Disembowel, because it's still a pillar of pain.

And what you are proposing is having three sets which are visually identical, but functionally different. This is not good design. This is why people complained about Katana back in the day. The solution is NOT to make these sets more like each other. It's to make them more distinct.

BABs also went out of his way to explain why the Talsorian weapons deal physical damage, and has also gone on the record as not wanting elemental weapons in physical sets precisely because people will expect them to deal elemental damage. We do have elemental shields, but because shields protect from damage and don't deal it, there are not expectations from them.

As far as "my own downfall" goes, it's arguing with you, because you seem to keep skipping half my arguments. I don't want axes in sword sets, because I want sword sets to act more like sword sets. NOT having axes in them is a requirement for this, because axes don't wield like swords, and if you have both swords and axes, all that does is ensure you can never have decent sword OR axe animations.

It is my hope that some day we'll get more sword animations, and they will feel more like what a sword should be like. I enjoy the brutish clubbing animations for the right characters with a big enough sword, but they look patently ridiculous with the smaller swords. That is why it's my hope we'll get a more refined, more athletic version of the sword attacks that would make them look more like actual sword attacks and LESS like axe attacks.

It's actually the same reason I want to see a separate two-handed hammer set, rather than dumping still more hammers into War Mace, because a mace is a one-handed weapon, whereas hammers have the great potential to be really impressive two-handed weapons, and mutually-exclusive with shields, to boot.

MOST of the alternative guns suck worse than a black hole made of sucky games. Check my previous post for an explanation a to why, but I feel adding sniper rifles and shotguns was a HUGE mistake. Again, it set up exactly this kind of rotten precedent, and it looks terrible, to boot. I've seen a precious handful of Assault Rifle Blasters use that confounded Sniper Rifle, and they've made my head hurt every time, because they always seem to grab grenades and flamethrowers anyway. And it looks BAAAD.

I'm am firmly against perpetuating that precedent. I don't want any more sets getting badly incompatible weapons for them. When it makes sense, yes. An axe in a sword set, however, does not make sense. And despite Assault Rifle being called "Assault Rifle," it is not a set about assault rifles. It requires its own special set of eccentric guns that, even when they do look like Assault Rifles like the Mercs guns do, still account for the fact that this is MORE than an assault rifle.

The OP can use the handily provided Battle Axe set, just like if I want to use claws, I use the handily provided Claws set and don't ask for Super Strength to be given claw attachments. If his favourite AT doesn't have access to Battle Axe, then the OP is free to suggest it be proliferated, and I will be right with him to support his suggestion. Battle axe for Scrappers? WANT! Battle Axe for Stalkers? Definitely. You can have a really cool two-handed vertical chop as an Assassin's Strike. I'd kill to have that, no pun intended.

See, this is what I mean - I'd rather this be done right, sets proliferated as they should and animations fitting the weapon be created, rather than that cheap, ugly solution of putting weapons where weapons don't belong.

And this is where aesthetics come in. Stabbing with an axe is simply stupid. It's the equivalent of stabbing with your elbow. It's not impossible, and Lord knows horror movies have done worse (fist-stabbing is common in them), but that does not mean it looks good. Stabbing with a pickaxe is ridiculous. Stabbing with a hatchet is just silly. Stabbing with that axe which has a STICK at the far end is just... Really? Seriously?

Weapons need to look the part. They need to look like they can do what we see them doing. Stabbing with an axe would be the equivalent of stabbing with a mace which, ironically, you are also suggesting.

---

No. In no way can I be convinced to support this. It would basically sink one of my fondest hopes for weapon sets. It would kill it dead. No way, no how. I want animations more appropriate to the weapons in question, NOT weapons even less appropriate to the animations we have. Add quality. Do not subtract it because other things are already pretty crappy. If Axe, Mace and Sword are so close as to be interchangeable, this needs to be fixed, not accepted.

If there are separate animations, visual effects and sounds for separate weapons, then why the Funk and Wagnall do they need to be the same set?

Also, whether someone wants to stab with an axe or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is that someone CAN'T stab with pretty much any of the axes we have in the game. It's not a question of "looks bad." You CAN'T. You can thrust with an axe, but that's not a stab. At most it's little more than a punch. It's certainly not the deadliest attack in an axeman's arsenal, as an Assassin's Strike should be.

In fact, Assassin's Creed 2 played with this a lot. They reused pretty much all the animations from the original game, but added maces and axes. The thing is, though, that while the idle swings of the mace were the same as those of the sword, the actual killing blows were not. Where the sword would stab through the chest and cut up limbs, hammers and maces would basically bash heads and smash spines. I'm not sure if the game featured axes at all, but if it did, they were heavy weapons and completely separate.

Yeah.

It does, actually. That's why I feel Assault Rifle is the most stiffed powerset when it comes to weapon customization (technically, no - Pulse Rifle is, but that doesn't count). The Omnigun, the Mercs assault rifles and the various special unlocks do look like they work. Things like the Sniper Rifle, however, simply do not. There's nothing weirder than doing full auto out of a thin-barrelled sniper rifle.

This is actually an artefact of what Weapon Customization originally was - a straight dump of existing props into custom weapons with often no regard with what the weapon set actually did. The Council/Crey "Aliens Pulse Rifle" works great for AR, as do the various Nemesis rifles, since that's what they do anyway, and it's future tech. The Scooby Doo Redding Rail Rifle is another good example, because it's techy enough to look like it can fire all of that crap.

I'd have preferred if they were more sensible in what they were adding to Assault Rifle. In fact, the set's entire name is a misnomer for what the set actually is. It's NOT an assault rifle, it's some kind of futuristic retrotech omnigun. Plenty of people have complained that it's not enough like an assault rifle, and throwing rifle models in a set that has flamethrowers, beanbags and rockets was never going to fix anything. I suppose you can grab a sniper rifle and only take the single-shot rifle attacks, but... Does anyone actually do that?

Put it this way - it's the same argument which keeps us from using left-hand weapons with Shield Defence. Wanna' argue with that next?

RP as an excuse for being a jerkass does not fly. We're not in third grade any more.

On topic - that's the reason I don't talk to people about their being a ripoff. It never works. If I see a Hulk ripoff or a Wolverine ripoff or, yes, a Vegeta ripoff, I report it. Simple as that.

Probably, but usually not on camera unless there's an important plot twist behind it. This is the sort of thing that makes fiction as cool as it is - you can have people be good enough shots that they simply never miss easy targets, regardless of what realism might want to say. Remember, you're trying to bring realism in a game where thrown rocks will chase people around corners and having large metal claws on your hands allows you to throw shurikens.

I dare say that's one break from reality I'd prefer to make, rather than stick to the explanation that everyone misses every now and then. Yeah, maybe they do. But they seem to shoot just fine when they're on-screen being badasses.

Actually, that's precisely the reason I don't play slot machines. I don't enjoy the element of blind luck factoring into everything. I prefer to win or lose on my own merits, not because my Assassin's Strike decided to miss the Sapper. I don't play games of luck because I don't enjoy them. I much prefer playing games of skill, and there's nothing skilful about having the server roll a random number for me.

It most definitely factors into risk vs. reward, but that's because that's what the game is built on. As I said before - RPGs that disrespect base accuracy calculations exist, and have always existed. Bare accuracy is not an integral part of an RPG, it's just one of the older conventions.

All basic accuracy serves to do is make things ever so slightly less predictable and make events less subject to being calculated ahead of time. However, you can easily do that in any number of different ways with AI variety and behaviour, environmental factors and, hell, even using critical hits instead of accuracy. You don't have to force people to miss easy shots to make a good game, and it's actually disturbing to me that I keep sing the opposite claimed whenever the issue comes up.

I'm not sure where this notion that the Respec Trial, or Trials in general, ought to be failable. That has precedent to the contrary, namely the villain Respec Trial, which cannot fail because it has not been coded with fail conditions in the objectives. It cannot be failed short of people simply deciding to stop playing. In fact, the difference between what is a Trial and what is a Task/Strike Force at this point in the game's life is purely academic. Once upon a time, Trials acted like very difficult missions and mostly consisted of that one mission - the Trial, as it were. That was when TFs were designed to take several days and before Trials locked you in TF mode.

This is no longer the case. The Respec Trial is a trial in name only. Mechanically, it is a TF, just like the ITF or the Positron TFs. These days, TFs are made smaller, faster and comprising of fewer missions, approaching the length of ye olde Trials quite handily. In fact, one of the villain Respec Trials is three missions and a hint, which I suspect is tantalisingly close to what you have to do in the ITF and believe is actually LONGER than the Katie Hannon TF.

Trials are like Hazard Zones - they exist in name only as the legacy of an old system which never amounted to anything and was retrofitted as part of an even older system. I don't think even the Sewers Trial is "a mission" any more, so much so as a rather peculiar TF, in the same way as Serpent Drummer's "Protect the Negotiations" is a rather peculiar mission, but a mission nonetheless.

The point of all this is that despite there being the word "trial" in the name of the Respec Trial, it is a TF. We need to treat it as such, because that's what it is. We can try and make it an exotic, eccentric TF, but as long as it locks you in TF mode, it's a TF.

I can't fail my story arcs, yet they give me Merits just the same. By that logic, the game should just give me the merits. In fact, it should be giving me Merits all the time, because I could be doing Story arcs which I cannot fail, so why bother do them, anyway? No pun intended, but I fail to see when "Can you succeed?" became the determining factor. It may be uncommon game design, but most things in City of Heroes you not only CAN, but WILL succeed at. You might just take longer to do so, and it may be more difficult to achieve, but rather very few things actually outright FAIL.

I'm not saying that the Respec Trial should be boring. Far from it. But by the same token, the Respec Trial is exactly the WRONG place to be looking for challenge, as many people have over the ages. There was a time when Jack believed that Respecs were this HUGE, once-in-a-lifetime reward, and they had to be safeguarded and secured because you were not supposed to be altering your character. I believe he thought it cheapened the game somehow. He's the same guy who believed that giving players access to real numbers cheapened the game, too. I like to think we've moved past Jack's patronising attitude towards his players.

Make it more fun, by all means. Redesign it if you have to. Why not? Never liked that Sky Raider hunt anyway. But let's try and not go the route of recent content in trying to make ever more pressing challenges. This isn't the place for them. And can we get an actual ramp up to the Reactor Complex, please? I'm tired of climbing pipes and shipping containers.

Fixed.

---

You know, thinking about this, I remembered something else that puts a flag pole in the spokes of this idea: Power Customization. A lot of us have been asking for alternate animations for the existing weapons sets for some time, and ideally, I'd like to see animations which use the weapon in question to its fullest potential. One of the stranger aspects of swords has always been the fact that none of the Broadsword attacks stab. They're all slashes. Ideally, I'd like to see at least a couple of stabs added to the set if it ever got alternate animations.

Thing is, you don't stab with an axe, so if we added axes to the weapon models, that'd just mean we will never be able to get any stabs in there. The reason people are saying Axe, Sword and Mace should be the same thing is because they share animations already. But I don't see this as a benefit to be exploited. I see it as a problem to be fixed. Rather than trying to make sets even more generic to the point where it doesn't matter if you're using a sword, an axe, a tree trunk or your own disembodied arm, I suggest we make these sets more unique. If I'm fighting with a sword, then perhaps I should have the option to swing it more like a sword and less like a "heavy object with a handle." Add in a few stabs, maybe even a few two-handed animations. If I'm using an axe, give me a few animations where it feels even heavier, as it should, or alternately where it feels like a hatchet, because that's what some options are.

I like to keep things as malleable as they can be, but as many of the new sets have demonstrated, there is benefit to be had in flair and specific themes.

Point is, I don't think it will ever be a viable travel power compared to the others, and I doubt it would keep its animation even if it were added. And while I understand that some would take it anyway (some still use Swift and Hurdle as travel powers), it's not something someone looking for an actual travel power will take, because it's neither fast enough nor agile enough to compete.

I wouldn't complain if it were added, of course, but not in Fitness. The less reason there is to take the Fitness pool, the better. I'd say either Leaping or Speed, but I'd sooner see it crammed into Fighting than put in Fitness. I guess it won't be viewed as a legitimate travel power, but more something inbetween combat travel and real travel. But then, we have nonsense like Group Flight, so eh.

I'd like to see it added to the game, but I just don't think it will be. So I'm looking for the next best thing, which is retaining its animation and retrofitting an existing power into something like its functionality.

You can't have two sets with the same name and the same weapons. That's both bad game design (why does MvsC2 have two Wolverines?) and it opens a gigantic can of worms. If "Heavy Blade" (axes HAVE blades, but ARE NOT blades) has two different versions, why can't Assault Rifle have two different versions? Or scratch that, why can't Devices have two versions? Preferably one that isn't horribly gimped? Why can't I have a Firey Melee variant on my Scrapper that has Combustion instead of Cremate? Can I have Baphomet's Flaming Footstomp instead of Greater Fire Sword?

I cannot see or accept two powersets that are the same thing but with different powers. It's just not a type of game design I want to be part of.

As well, only one AT uses Broadsword in a way that's at all comparable to Battle Axe, and that's Scrappers. Stalkers have access to Broadsword, but it has one big honkin' stab attack in the form of Assassin's Strike. You DO NOT STAB with an axe. I don't care if you slash, slice or hack with it. That's permissible. But you do not stab with an axe. I don't care if it has a spike at the end. An axe is not a stabbing weapon. A halberd may be, but a halberd is more pike than axe, and is two-handed, to boot.

Once upon a time I tried to argue to allow small hatchets to be used with Dual Blades, but with at least two attacks and Assassin's Strike using stabs, that went out of the question entirely. You don't stab with an axe. It'd be like stabbing with a mace just because it has spikes on the ball.

He has, and from what I remember, his response was that the cost for having such a weapon was prohibitive. But even if it were deemed impossible, it doesn't hurt to keep bringing this up. A polearm set, especially if done right, could be a wondrous addition.

When people are crying about how it used to be, it very much has a leg to stand on, because how it used to be was very, very difficult. Too difficult for what its point was in the first place. Getting a reward once you've proven you don't need it is not good game design. Not for anyone who does not enjoy self-torture, at any rate.

If people are looking to improve the hero Respec Trial, then it's a good idea to avoid daydreaming about the old days. Many of us did not enjoy the old days and would not want to see a return to that.

That is if you ignore what the sets actually are and focus only on what you see as similar.

Broadsword focuses on -def effects, as well as the +def effect of Parry.If you put all three right-hand weapon sets together, Sword would be the lightest-hitting of them all, but that's because it offers significant survivability. It trades that off for having less AoE.

Battle Axe has knockback and ONLY knockback. Far more potent than the accidental knockback of Sword and Mace, this allows Battle Axe to stack its control effects and deliver control to large groups of foes. It also has NO OTHER SECONDARY EFFECT THAN THIS. Period.

War Mace focuses much more on control. It has strong stuns and reliable knockbck, but War Mace stuns. War Mace also does smashing damage. So no, you cannot "slash" with a mace, as slashing implies cutting, which War Mace does not do. It's really just as simple as that.

The sets are not identical, and you claiming that they are is nothing more than facetious. They are not the same set. They do share some animations, but not for the same powers, as well. Furthermore, they do not share visual effects. To claim that they're the same set is to claim that Electrical Melee and Energy Melee are the same set because they share animations for Total Focus, Energy Punch and Bone Smasher.

You have an argument about using an axe with sword powers, to a certain extent. The only counter-argument is that we already have an axe set. What do we do about that one? Your argument about using a mace for sword attacks is empty. A mace is a blunt weapon. It should not be used for cutting attacks. There really is no argument you can level that can explain why an ancient bone can cut. Sorry. This I'm simply not going to accept.

*edit*
I have a little more time to expand on this now that I'm not in a hurry. Here's my problem with this:

I don't have a conceptual problem with having axes in a sword set or swords in an axe set. I do not, however, see any need to and, furthermore, see a BIG problem with the fact that axes and swords have their own, separate, unique sets. I don't think anyone's arguing to just drop either set out of existence. That would be stupid. But the question then becomes - what of the other set? Do we get two (possibly three) sets called "weapons" that have the same weapon but different powers and effects in them? If so, can I have another set with an Assault Rifle that doesn't suck as much?

The Axe, Mace and Sword sets are not close enough to each other as to be interchangeable. In fact, having played all of them, they play in staggeringly different ways. When I play Axe, I tend to prioritise Cleave and Pendulum, whereas when I play Sword, I tend to prioritise Head Splitter and Disembowel (the equivalent of Swoop). When I play Mace, I dent to prioritise Clobber (a power that has no equivalents, mechanically) and DEFINITELY Crowd Control. The sets feel different from each other in actual play, especially after having played them.

Any suggestion made about proliferating weapons has to account for the different sets that already exist. Dropping sets out of the game is not an option for obvious reasons. Merging sets is not an option, because the sets are nothing alike. Proliferating weapons must still be done in such a way as to give each set a reason to still exist, above and beyond the ability to swing the same old weapons in a different way. Katana is already skirting the line quite a bit with so many of its weapons being available to other sets, and Dual Blades mostly avoids the problem by having two blades.

If anything, I'd like to have MORE weapon sets, not fewer of them. Two-handed weapon sets, if possible. Probably want to see a two-handed hammer, but a two-handed sword or axe would suffice.

First of all, enemies straight out of the costume creator are lame as NPCs. They're just not interesting enough even with people's creativity involved. That's part of why Jay has said in the past that the majority of his time is spent making NPCs.

Secondly, the act of making a decent NPC is all about the balance, not about the tools required to place pre-existing powers within a critter framework. And that's even if we assumed they should be using existing powers which, for new enemies, is debatable. Secondly, you've seen what simply grabbing powers off powersets as the system suggests produces - variable-strength enemies, who are often either pathetic or far too strong for their level range. "Some balancing required," within this context, is an understatement.

I'm not against making new enemies for new encounters. I just don't want level 50 Hellions.