ShadowsBetween

I've seen this mentioned before, I actually had to look it up to find out why this was such a "d'ur" move. Apparently the old Moment of Glory dropped your health by a huge amount, and made you immune to any sort of heal or hitpoint buff. It also pushed damage resistances for almost everything to insane levels. So you would now have 100 hitpoints, but anything that attacked you would be doing just fractions of a point of damage. *Unless* it was Psi, the only thing Moment of Glory didn't boost resistance for.

So against psychic critters, the battle apparently went something like this:

*You have activated Moment of Glory!*
"I am INVINCIBLE!"
*Psychic Clown uses Ice Cream Headache!*
"Ow."
*You have died!*

I think the problem is that if the owner hasn't parked them somewhere, minions *can* block access to the merchants, since the only person who can walk through them is the owner. To anyone else, a wall of Ninjas is an impenetrable barrier. Yes, you can move the camera and click on the merchant from straight down, unless he's somehow got a pile of Thugs on him or something, but a lot of people might not think to do that right away. I'm not sure what a good solution is, now that the pets don't auto-kill when you change zones. I think a lot of people would like it if the Black Market and Wentworths were changed to "no power" zones like Studio B, but I don't know how hard that would be to setup. In AE, is Studio B actually a zone where powers simply don't function, or is there a "suppression" NPC hiding in there somewhere, like the Teleport nullifiers in Pocket D?

I didn't take Photon Grenade for the stun, as it is unreliable and not very strong. *If* the stun even goes off, and manages to stack with *all* the other stuns from the pets, I *might* be able to stun a Boss for a second or two. I took it because it's AoE damage, and generates a decent but not overwhelming amount of threat. I can launch it into the middle of the group so that I can take the Alpha and the first few attacks.

I never use the default buttons, as they aren't set up very well. Unless something has changed though, the last time I checked pets would only be in Bodyguard mode if they were in Defensive Follow. Giving them an attack order (even Attack Defensive) would break Bodyguard at that time. Even if it is possible to focus fire without breaking Bodyguard, I'd still rather take the personal attacks than an even more worthless power like Provoke. But that's just me, and I know I'm odd.

For the human pets, yes this is true. They all look like pretty standard costume sets. It's the non-humans that would be the sticking point here. The Lich and Oni have full robes, which the devs have apparently stated that players aren't likely to ever get. The Bots have some custom parts, but they have a *lot* of specific animations that won't work with a normal human character, or could at least potentially look quite awful. (I'm thinking particularly of the drones' "unpacking" animation.) And we don't even know what the Demon pets will look like.

Again though, allowing MM players to custom design their pets has issues. For one thing, the custom critters would have to be stored as part of the costume data, and shared with each player you get near. For MA arcs, this isn't an issue because it can send the data upfront as the mission starts. Additionally, all characters use the same data for costumes, so not only would MM costume data get larger, every other players costume data would have to include a space for something they're not using. For weapon sets, this isn't a problem, since I think it references what powers you have, and then it's a simply one value from a list to indicate what weapon model you use. And that's not even counting separate costume slots - things would spiral out of control pretty quickly if every character costume had to include a space each MM pet, for *each* costume slot. Even if it is set up to parse the data and only include MM pet data for Masterminds, you still have the problem of MM costumes needing vastly more data than anyone else. For a totally custom Thug set, where you can set each pet to a specific appearance, you'd have the equivalent of costume data for up to seven characters for each costume slot (one MM plus six pets.)

Assuming that there's a way around this, there's still the problem of costume part selection. If you limit the selection, you'll get complaints from everyone that actually wants to look different. For example, Thugs could be a passable set for someone who wanted to create a Gunslinger or Pirate themed gang. (With the right costumes, Posse would be awesome for "random crew" or "angry mob".) For the humanoid pets, do you allow access to the full costume creator, or just a limited set of parts? For the non-player type models (Oni, Lich, most or all of the bots, the basic Zombies, and probably all of the Demons) how many new parts do you add?

And again, it's asking for a feature that would take tremendous amounts of work, and that will only directly benefit one class. *If* we ever get customizable pets, I'd guess that it would be *exactly* like Stone Armor currently is - you can choose a theme for each pet power, and set the colors. The technical problems with setting it up to customize each individual pet would be enormous. I'd *love* to see the feature added. But there seems to be two chances for it - Slim and None, and Slim left town.

They could conceivably set MM customization to work like the new Stone Armor graphics, with several different themes. So for Necromancers, you'd have the standard set, along with (for example) an actual Skeleton theme, and an Undead Cyborg theme. (Think zombies with artificial limbs and cyborg hoses and such.)

Between the VEATS and the new Melee animations, we know they have the tech to set it up so that you have several mutually exclusive powers available at a given level. You'd basically be using the Customization menu to choose between Necromancy: Zombies, Necromancy: Skeletons, and Necromancy: CyberZombies, for example.

The main obstacle I can think of to this kind of customization is time versus payoff. Even if it's just new models on the same animation skeletons, MM pets consume as much effort as a new NPC. (At least.) So to add even two themes to all the existing sets would be as much effort as creating an entirely new faction. And given the variety in most factions, it would be closer to two entire factions. Assuming that they *just* allow you to choose a different theme for each power, and only add two themes to each, that would be between three and probably six models/color variants for Tier one, along with at least two more for Tier 2 and 3. And since I think the Tier 2 pets are slightly random as well, it would more likely be three or four. So for each power, you'd need a minimum of five new models, and more likely something like ten or twelve. So, ten new models, times two new themes, times five current powersets. All to customize a class of Primary powers that is only available to one out of the 14 ATs. (Aside from the Epics, every other AT shares at least some powers with at least one other AT.)

Honestly, I'd love to see a powerful, versatile MM customization setup. Realistically, MM primaries take the most work, and benefit the smallest number of characters of any possible powerset. Honestly, we're probably lucky to be getting a new set with Going Rogue.

Actually, no, that's a hacked pet. Someone has altered their personal graphics files. At least, if the name of the video is any indicator, I backed out before the ad finished running. In which case, that would be an example of the precise sort of thing the developers seem to be worried about.

At a guess, it's would probably be Acid Mortar (to help the bots kill things faster,) Trip Mine for dealing with bosses, and you still get a semi-decent shield to stack with the Protector bots shields. Plus with Traps there's actually something to *do* during combat, and some feel it takes a little more strategic thinking. As you said, with Bots/FF, you basically walk into a room in Bodyguard mode, poke someone in the eye and then just wait for the shooting to stop. Personally, I have one of each, and happen to like both combos.

I was refering to the main "Prime world" timeline. I have no idea if either of the Praetorian versions of Cole or Richter were exposed to mustard gas. I was just pointing out that I'm pretty sure WWI was over by the time Statesman became a super.

For me, it's basically because the bots *look* incredibly technological. As I said, if there was an alternate version that looked more Steampunk, it wouldn't be such a leap. That's simply my personal bias. I see the current bots and reflexively think "science or tech." I do the same thing for Assault Rifle, despite the fact that I know of at least two fairly famous characters that use firearms and are essentially magical creatures. (Hellboy and at least one version of Ghost Rider.)

As I said, I don't agree with the reasoning. But that *is* one of the reasons why they've said it'll never happen.

It's already part of the backstory that there is no Praetorian Recluse. On that world, when they got their powers it was Tyrant that went nuts, and he immediately killed his best friend. (In both versions, Statesman and Recluse were friends up to the point where they got their powers.) There might be a Praetorian version of Arachnos, and there's probably a Praetorian version of Mako. There *might* be a Praetorian version of Black Scorpion and Sirrocco. But it's entirely possible that they wouldn't be part of Praetorian Arachnos, since I believe they were all recruited by Lord Recluse. Ghost Widow and Wretch are a little tricky since their existence is the result of a freak accident. Of course, there have been hints that Sister Airlia and Ghost Widow are connected somehow, so it's possible that there is *a* Ghost Widow. It just might not be a Praetorian version of the same person.

As far as Patron/Epic pools, I'd guess that they won't take powers away. The Patron arcs will probably be set up as "Villain Only" to start - "You must be at least this evil to gain these powers." Once you have them, if you want to work your way clear over to being a hero, you get to keep them. After all, it's part of the actual arcs that pretty much as soon as you get the powers, Recluse forces you to betray your Patron. So keeping the powers isn't directly related to whether the Patron still likes you or not.

And from a gameplay perspective, taking things away from the players usually results in a lot of yelling. At a guess, they'll probably end up having to add "normal" Epic pools for the villain classes. Anyone will be able to access those. Only those who get to level 40 as full Villains will be able to do the Patron arcs. They *might* add heroic versions of the Patron arcs/pools, since one of the few features they've actually mentioned is that there will be special perks for those that pick a side and stick with it.

Actually no, I wouldn't expect a succubus pet. One of the stated reasons for "no female pets" is the possibility of someone creating a pimp character of some kind. I don't really agree with the reasoning (especially since WoW Warlocks *do* get a Succubus pet, and one that looks pretty slinky at that) but I can understand the concern. Look at all the weird news reports that "professional" journalists run about video games, and consider how well researched and objective they are. Yeah. Right.

I'd need to check this to be sure, but I believe that the XP penalty is based on the contents of the custom group. So if the custom group is set up so that it gives full XP, and your difficulty slider is set to "No Bosses," you just won't see the boss spawns while you're solo, but you'll get full XP for everyone else. The change was meant to heavily penalize the "All Bosses" farms. I'll have time to double check this for certain later.

Appologies. I did not articulate that as well as I intended. I agree, those FX issues aren't bugs as such, and aren't serious compared to some of the genuine glitches (crashes, lockups, bizarre UI behaivior.) It's good to know that some of them have been fixed though.