Starhammer

There's a lot of great ideas listed, but first and foremost, I've wanted Sky Raider gauntlets for a long time. Also those vents on the side of Crey Tank helmets.

Yeah, I know there's been other threads on "total respecs" AT/Powerset respecs, and so on. Unfortunately they seem to break down into hostile arguments pretty quickly with people thinking that any such respec is equivalent to "just creating characters from scratch at level 50 and not knowing the first thing about how to play".

There are good reasons for such respecs though, such as the fact that some people don't want to mess with a stable full of alts, or others have irreplaceable badges that we want to keep, but have had new powersets (and even archtypes) come out since those pre-1st Anniversary characters were made that may fit our originally desired concept better than our original choices, or maybe we built a character who's concept was that he was a Praetorian before we had the option to make a "real" Praetorian and we want to go back and fix it, but don't want to sacrifice "all" the work we've put into the character so far.

How about if we had Access to an "Ultimate Respec" at some point (Vet reward, High Level TF/Trial, Unlocked at hitting 50, purchase for a few Hero/Villain merits... or even as simple as it being an oiption during a "mundane" respec, whatever works). When perfoming such a respec, it takes your character (after a couple "Are you sure" and "Are you REALLY sure" screens) back to the character creation choices, keeping their name the same, and keeping all their badges intact, but letting them choose faction, AT, and powersets from scratch. When they finish however, they're level 1 again, right up to the choice whether to skip the tutorial. The difference is that anything they've done to earn credit for a badge remains on the character, and as long as the character itself would "qualify" for the badge, they still have it. Heroes wouldn't have Villain only badges (unless they switched sides at some point and became a villain, much how it works now for similar badge-credit situations), and the Level 10, 20, 30, 40, & 50 badges would be lost until the character was able to earn them again. To ease some of the burden of re-levelling, The character would be flagged for receiving double XP until they get to the same XP total they had when they performed the respec (which wouldn't stack with Double XP weekends or Patrol XP of course).

This way, a character can be "reinvented" from the ground up, without sacrificing anything truly irreplaceable (like certain badges), and make use of powersets or ATs that weren't available to them before, WITHOUT getting a "free ride" to high level, and ensuring that the player still has to spend some time getting used to the new powers and abilities on the character.

I love the idea. Aside from clicky mez-prot (yeah, some like it, I hate it... meh personal preference), I love the Ninjitsu set. I also like the most of suggested power replacements quoted by AzureSkyCiel. I'd keep the blinding powder though, it's interesting, and a little wacky (in a good way). I would specify that I'd like the modified Smoke Bomb to be a melee PBAoE, as opposed to the ranged version some others get (Maybe with a 10% chance for a few seconds of choking-based hold added in).

I'd also like to see a Tanker version that keeps the caltrops

I'd love to see this implemented, along with a variety of other supergroup changes (they really need a major overhaul, or even to be redesigned from the ground up).

You'd probably have to use a new Supergroup window filter, similar to the Friends window filter, so that you could pick which membership you want to view (and represent). We could probably do away with "Super Group Mode" as having anything to do with prestige and just make it switch costume colors to match whatever SG you have selected.

I do not think that you should earn prestige for all the groups you are in though... either you'd have to split it equally among them all, making you less desirable as a prestige earner than someone who's loyalties aren't divided, or you earn multiples of the current rate, making it important to be in as many SGs as possible. It would be better, in my not-so-humble opinion, if you just earned your own prestige budget and donated it (in whatever amount you desired) as needed to whichever group or groups you want.

Some other changes that I think would go well with this would be to have every container in a base have it's own permissions roster (and also to hold more than 30 items, and have it's base rent addition modified by the highest number of items that have been stored in it over the previous month), so that the storage item's creator can choose who gets to put things into or take things out of it. These permissions can be based on SG rank, or individuals can be granted specific rights.

There should also be a "Allow @Global Access" permission that SG leaders can set for characters/players, so that if you want someone to have access to the base or other assets even if they just built/rebuilt a character, switched alignments, or whatever... That player could be allowed to have all their toons in the group, without having to take up multiple character slots. This would also simplify life for folks like me who like maintaining a "Solo Group" just to keep a base for storage or tinkering with base design.

The very concept of "Super(Hero) Groups" and "Villain Groups" should be merged. There's no fundamental difference between how the two function, aside from the new complications with side-switching. And side switching of an entire group (while maintaining assets earned over potentially many years) or even just a few members who have either "gone rogue" or "gone undercover" should be supported. Basically, the game should not dictate who a Supergroup allows in it's ranks. That's RP info and should be left up to the players to RP through on their own, if they even care, and aren't just using the SG as a player association with a base for storage and zone transport.

It's very simple... put the tools in the players hands to run their SGs (Hero, Villain, or otherwise) how they want to and get what they want out of those groups.

(If you don't want to take risks of somebody stealing your stuff, don't trust them with it, but don't tell everybody else that just because you don't want to trust a character who's a part of multiple groups, that nobody else should be allowed to trust them either)

Personally, I enjoy my KB, it's just fun to ragdoll my enemies around the room, or better yet, get them hung up and helpless in some wall protrusion in the sewers. (it doesn't happen real often, but it's highly amusing when it does). I also understand the frustration of trying to control mob location via taunts and how a energy torrent can make everything so much more difficult. So in favor of helping everyone out a little, here's a couple ideas...

1) [Knockback Suppression]: Knockback Suppression would be an Inherent toggle available to every character at level 1. It costs 0 Endurance, and can't be forcibly detoggled by stuns/etc (maybe even make it stay on through death). It's sole function is to cap the players maximum KB output at Knockdown levels. That way, if you like KB, you leave it off, but if you don't like doing KB, or you're with a team that wants you to dial the KB back, you toggle this power on, and voila, no more pinball mobs. It doesn't require any special enhancements, doesn't use anyone's precious enhancement slots, and is usable by anyone whenever they want it, and can equally be ignored by anyone who likes playing pinball with the badguys.

2) Taunt IO - Knockback Resistance: This would be an IO Proc that goes in any Taunt power, and gives any enemy affected by the power enough knockback resistance that they won't get knocked around. Tanks, scrappers, & Brutes (and anyone who gets the Presence taunts... Does anyone actually use those?) can make sure that no badguy goes anywhere during combat except under his own power. It's not perfect, but puts the power in the hands of those most detrimentally affected by knockback. Added bonus, it helps against Fusionette's KB, since you couldn't kindly ask her to toggle on [Knockback Suppression]. Further, some tanks aren't bothered by KB, and if that's the case, they don't have to use it if they don't want to. Make the recipe for this proc drop fairly commonly, or even be purchasable from an NPC (such as at the Hero/Villain lounges, or in the Arena) so that there's plenty readily available.

3) Ok, this last one is only slightly related, but I'd love to see melee armor set based on Gravity control, where you get a black hole themed taunt aura that causes the enemies to be knocked off their feet and pulled toward you.

Perhaps this would be more possible to incorporate if the game were to receive a "sound customization" treatment. There's a lot of things other than the few voice bits that I'd like to tinker with to further customize my play experience. For instance one of my robotic characters would be much cooler if my Sprint power had the running sound effects of the MM robots. Being able to change the sound effects on the Dual Pistol powers (along with activating cryo or chem bullets) would make "blaster pistols" much easier to replicate... Yeah, I know the damage types might not be appropriate, but sometimes it's more important for the form to fit the concept than the function.

Another thought that occurs to me, at least for bubble powersets that consistently include 2 or more single application short term bubbles, would be to change the relevant powers so that if you have both of them, application of one performs like application of both.

Say for instance the Force Field shields... 1st shield provides some smashing/lethal defense, 2nd shield provides energy/fire/etc. (there's more to it, but that's sufficient for this example... for the same reason I'll be using some "simpler than actual" numbers)

Change each power so that if you have just the first shield, it still works the way it does now, same for the second. But if you have both shield powers, each of them provides the buff of both of them combined (smashing/lethal/fire/energy/etc.) and the base endurance cost doubles. Now as long as you have both, you can use just one and get the effects of both. In net effect, it gains some benefit by reducing the total application time for the whole team. (There's also some room for abuse with the need for enhancements, but I'm just posting an idea to consider, not a comprehensive design for total overhaul) The quality of life issues would be simplified significantly though, as it reduces the potential for confusion over who needs which buffs (the icons look the same to me, especially the tiny ones... and not everyone is capable of writing out keybinds that cycle which buff is applied like I do), it gives a "100% reduction to power effects spam" for the selected powers, and provides a little more time before bubblers start suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome.

All in all, even I think this idea is more work to implement in retrofitting existing powers than it would be worth... but I think it would be something to consider the value of if the time comes that they need to overhaul the powers anyway, or create new powers of a similar nature.

Another possibility to consider would be to retrofit the powers as a targeted or point blank Area of Effect, that hits everyone, then charges you a much higher endurance cost, similar to how MM pet buffs were overhauled.

Yet one more option to consider would be enhancements to a power's duration. I know there's a lot of powers I'd like to see that available for.

Thank you Shawn, for taking the time to share some of your insights on the purposes and processes involved in the alignment system.

That said, I think it could have been done much better. The vigilante choices are often downright Villainous and the Rogue missions are often far too virtuous. The alignment missions usually seem (to me at least) as if they would be better suited to a game where everyone started neutral and had to earn their spot as a Hero or Villain. They seem to be more a means of sifting light from dark than showcasing the shades of gray.

Also, the process feels a bit "forced" the way it works. You get a tip and decide ahead of time which way you want to lean, in an effort to build toward a particular alignment. While this is fine from a meta-gaming perspective, it feels to me as if it's shouldered its way into the character perspective a bit too forcefully.

What I would have greatly preferred to see would have been for tip missions to function much more like the Praetorian moral choice missions. You get a tip and go to investigate it, and you figure out what it's all about in the process of the mission (some of those tip missions just "hand over" far too much information after hand-waving a "you investigate and learn" phrase) and as you go through the mission, you are presented with moral choices (unlike the Praetorian ones where you just get one choice at the end), such as whether to kill an opponent or capture them and escort them to custody, whether to take a glowie for yourself instead of leaving it as evidence for the crime scene crew, whether to leave behind enemies or even civilians who may have "witnessed" your actions and could spread the word about what you did or didn't do. By the end of the mission, the game counts up the moral choices you made during the mission (or even mission arc... some of these would be much more interesting if they weren't self contained within a single mission), and determines whether to assign you an alignment point for Hero, Vigilante, Rogue, or Villain, depending on what you are currently.

I would also have liked to see the ability to go from Paragon to the Rogue Isles opened up for all alignments. There are Heroic deeds that need to be done in the Rogue Isles, and Villainous opportunities in Paragon. Sure, it should be a dangerous place, with Arachnos agents or Longbow troops acting in a hostile manner to those who "don't belong," but it would open many opportunities without creating a need for new maps. Many of the contacts might have different mission arcs available for someone of different alignment, instead of a curt "I don't talk to Heroes/Villains." After all, most villainous contacts in the Rogue Isles wouldn't feel bad about having a hero do their dirty work, or even have some heroic task that they couldn't entrust to the locals. In Paragon, a contact may be double-dealing under the table, or might simply be unaware of a villain's status as a villain (What, does every Tom, Richard, and Harriette memorize Longbow's top 10,000 most wanted list?)

Furthermore, the way things stand, your status as a Vigilante or Rogue is little more than tourism access to the other zones (though it's a pain for Rogues, since Paragon is obnoxiously time consuming to navigate without dependable access to travel hub zones... we really need a merged Ouroboros, I never thought it made sense to be separate in the first place) and as a stepping stone to go "all the way" to the other side. From a concept standpoint, I can certainly say that many of my characters are vastly better suited to be Rogues or Vigilantes than total goody-two-shoes heroes (who still happen to eviscerate and incinerate and disintegrate minor thugs for purse snatching, jaywalking, and loitering... real heroic guys...) or mustache-twirling megalomanics out to control or destroy everything else (or even just serve to the best of their ability in Arachnos, bringing a bit of law and order to the environment around them, because it suits them to do so). But as things stand for Rogues and Vigilantes, it's just more of a pain than it's worth to refuse to commit to one idealistic extreme or the other.

So I'm going through this mission for Wardog, and thinking, dang, this guy is sick. I don't want to merely stop doing his missions and go take a shower, I want to lure him into the clutches of his enemies. I'd even turn him over to Praetor Tillman with a clean conscience, and I'd turn her over to Captain Mako with a warm fuzzy feeling in my heart.

I would like to see a couple "handler" contacts made available (one per faction) that I could approach at any time I feel like a contact I'm working for is worth less alive than dead. So here's how it would go...

I go to Inquisitor Stayne who's having a cup at Loyal Tea & Coffee in Nova Praetoria and strike up a conversation. I tell him "I know a guy" who's planning on doing something bad, and he asks me who. I get a context sensitive menu selection that allows me to choose any of my active Resistance contacts (except Calvin Scott, he's too paranoid to be caught in such a trap, like Marchand is too well protected to be caught in a similar trap by a Loyalist player and Rusty the Nail, a bum squatting near the resistance stronghold door in the Nova Underground). I get some dialogue from Stayne and am given a mission to lure the contact I selected into a trap.

I go lure the guy into a trap, end up having to get in a fight with a random group that was in the same location at the same time for a different reason, and eventually turn the contact over to his enemies. I go back to Stayne (or Rusty) and he gives me a suitable "attaboy" and tells me I'd be welcome to come over to the "right" side, but if I'd be willing, he'd like me to consider staying where I am acting as a deep cover agent and look for more targets to capture. If I choose to "Remain with the Resistance," he's conveniently got a good alibi for what I was doing when the contact was captured, clearing me of any accusations of betrayal... probably involving a PPD ambush and another mission to break out of jail. If on the other hand I take the opportunity to "Join the Loyalists" I'm ambushed by a Resistance hit squad that's been biding their time, looking for proof that I was behind the betrayal, and they dump me in a pit of ghouls.

If I return to where the contact I betrayed was located, I will find a "backup contact" standing near where the original was. This will be a barely named flunky of that faction, who has enough authority to introduce me to the next guy in the contact chain (unless the guy I betrayed was at the top of his zone's contact chain, in which case the flunky offers up a hearty "Good luck, now shove off!" ). Otherwise, the backup contact is capable of filling in for the original as someone to talk to if a later mission would have sent me to see the original as part of a mission or arc sequence (thereby eliminating broken sequence errors in story arcs). Functionally, he'd work the same as the original, except he doesn't offer any of his own missions, and doesn't have a "store" or background info (or if he does have background info, it basically tells how he's a flunky filling in for the other guy, who's gone missing).

There could be a badge for committing a certain number of "betrayals" or maybe even an accolade for wiping out an entire subfaction worth of contacts (all the Crusader contacts, or all the Responsibility contacts, for instance), and a real snazzy accolade for wiping out all four subfactions through Betrayal micro-archs [evil grin].

....................

In addition to this, those points where you get the notification "Those characters who are truly loyal... blah, blah, blah," should allow you to call the other side regardless of what faction you chose originally for two reasons. First, the mission goal Reese gives you can be confusing for folks who haven't been through it before, leaving you thinking that in order to be a Loyalist undercover operative, you are supposed to choose Resistance when given the option (the PPD LT in the mission even asks if "you'll follow your orders" which were to join the Resistance...). Second, it facilitates the concept of really changing sides, instead of, at most, being a deep cover agent for whichever side you chose in the tutorial, even if they start doing things that make you want to clean their base with mustard gas.

/signed for co-op, semi-co-op, entrance options, and /or anything else that let's my Rogue use O-zone transit while running with a blue team so I don't have to walk/run/fly/skip through have a dozen maps to get where everyone else goes from Ouorboros.

I would just like if there was a setting in the options, where we decide what buffs are shown, to "show only buffs provided by me." That way, if there's another bubbler on the team, or even just a bunch of folks with leadership, it's a bit simpler for me to see which of my teammates I still need to buff, or which buffs are wearing off, without confusing my buffs for the other guys, or having to deal with a huge string of icons covering half my screen.

When you right click an ally's name in chat, I'd like to see another option added to the menu, to target them if near enough. This would be simpler than using a custom target command (gotta type it in if you don't have the name in a bind) and allow easier heals/rez during invasions and raids for those not in your team.

I'm finding that in numerous missions where there is anyone to "rescue" that I am getting [Negative Stealth] applied to my character, even if the victims don't need to be escorted anywhere.

I can remove it by exiting the map and re-entering, but it'd be nicer just to get it fixed

Like many others who have posted, I am greatly underwhelmed by this pack.

The emotes are very nice in themselves... smooth animations and pretty cool as emotes go. Unlike many others I did actually buy this, entirely because I've wanted the airguitar emote for many years now.

I think this would have been more than twice as popular at half the price. For that matter, if there were an in-game "store" interface for microtransactions (like DDO), you could probably get away with selling these piecemeal for 99¢ each, like many .mp3 sellers.

Marketing issues aside, this really should have had more content in it. Maybe some more street/party appropriate "mundane" clothes for costume options, like some more jackets and shirts, sports shorts, and some nicely detailed "High-top" shoes, preferably with a couple pattern options and colorable. There should also have been a breakdance emote in the mix... seems appropriate to the theme, and would have fit nicely... far better than /e opengift :/ A "turntable" emote where you have a dj booth pop up in front of the character and you start working it would also have been nice (as a boombox variant preferably, so it would have music). Another thing that would have fit well would be to add a Pool Cue as a custom weapon for Mace users. That would probably have gotten sales all by itself.

On the subject of /e pool, the emote looks good and all, but it mostly just looks like you're talkin' smack while holding a cue... would have been better if there were a second one to go with it that actually looked like shooting pool. For that matter, it seems like the basketball one should have had a finger spin in the mix. Another pair of emotes that would have fit nicely with the sports theme would have been swinging a golf club (one for driving, one for putting), along with also unlocking golf clubs as custom mace weapons. (for those thinking I'm hung up on the Mace thing, yes, I do have a Mace toon, but he's not sports themed or anything, I just can't think of a "good" way to use golf clubs in Dual Pistols or AR)

A neat power to have seen in it would have been throwing a disco ball up in the air above an area and have shiny lights beam down, giving a small chance to stun, confuse, or immobilize foes in the area for a while. (Low endurance toggle, targeted aoe, 5% chance for each proc every 5 seconds with a mez duration of 4 seconds each, minimal recharge time... allowing it's use as a RP tool as well. Have it play some disco music as a part of the power fx).

This *could* have been a very cool theme pack. As is, it's not. Individually, the emotes are great, but as a pack it was severely lacking.

Ok, during GR beta we had some fun making cracks about Zoning 7 when Vista Zoning was having "problems".

I could actually see some great possibility for a "Zoning 7" however. Imagine taking all the zones in the game that you can get to via normal movement (run/fly/jump/teleport) and you take them all, sort them so they're adjacent without war walls (maybe with the ruins of some war walls that get destroyed during "The Coming Storm") and then you break down the entire area into hexagonal "blocks", each functioning as a mini-zone. When you're in such a Block, the game works on loading everything in the surrounding 6 Blocks in the background, with load priority shifting toward whichever blocks you're closest to. (With Hex-shaped Blocks, you get the block you're in plus the six surrounding you, hence "Zoning 7")

If this can be made to work correctly, then you end up using Vista zoning to go from hex to hex, but the hex you enter is already loaded in the computer memory, so you don't need a loading screen while it loads. Essentially you never have to deal with another loading screen again going from zone to zone, unless you do something like use Pocket D Transport or Mission Transporter, or use the train/ferry/Orouborous transport, giving you -for the most part- seamless transitions from one neighborhood to the next.

I know there's functional problems, for instance I'm sure Super Speeders would be able to run faster than the loading process currently, giving them even more loading screens (ugh), however I think it's a great concept to work towards, possibly for a couple years down the line.

I'd love to see an EAT of some sort that's vehicle based, functioning somewhat like Kheldians, only instead of Nova and Dwarf form, you get "forms" that are more like a Sky Skiff and maybe a low altitude hovertank of some sort (it solves the strafe issue). In either case, you have your first costume slot be what shows up "riding" in the vehicle, where you have no emotes or character animations (or at least very few, like maybe a salute or drinking coffee) if you're in "vehicle form."

Non-vehicle form could use a variation of VEAT power selection to give the human form access to a truncated list of different power pools, letting the character have access to slightly less versatile selections of existing pools, but giving them greater versatility overall since the pool selections would include all the basic AT forms (ranged offense, melee offense, buff/debuff, mez sets, defense sets, resistance sets). In essence, the human form would be like building your own custom AT from existing powersets, but each subset would lack the most spectacular powers from it's parent set. If you chose an attack subset for Primary, the attack subsets would be grey'd out in Secondary, with the same going for defensive subsets, mez subsets, and so on. Much like single-form khelds, a player could theoretically use this and skip the vehicle form powers to just build an AT with combinations that they want thematically but that aren't available in normal ATs (for instance, I want a few sword attacks for my Dark Defender other than just Iron Blade). The vehicle forms on the other hand, could use power customization to shift between generic and factional styles, allowing a character to be Longbow themed, Sky Raider themed, or more options as they become available, such as Praetorian Resistance or Loyalists, Primal Clockwork (instead of riding in the vehicles, they transform), or even stranger possibilities.

It wouldn't solve all vehicle desires, but it would quench some of the thirst, and offer great concept versatility for characters that isn't quite available currently.

Could not only put pitch on a slider, but also have some checkboxes for "filters" that would add a mechanical tone or a creepy occult echo...

Who knows, with any luck we'll get an Energy Rifle (extension of the Bots MM attacks) set to use the Resistance rifle and heavy barrel, and a "Plasma Bolt" ammo type added to Dual Pistols

I've asked for something along these lines before. On a thematic level, I love the idea of Patron Power Pools (and yeah, Mentor is a cool name for the Heroic versions). I'd love to see every big-name NPC red, blue, or yellowside, and even some of the lesser known ones (Spark Blade was an excellent example) have a patron/mentor pool associated with them (obviously some of them would bleed into group associated pools, like Vanguard, PPD, Carnies, etc.)

The biggest functional difference I'd like to see from how things work now would be that in order to access the pool, you'd have to do an arc for that Patron/Mentor, similar to how Patrons were originally chosen, except that you would not be limited to one... you could do as many Patron/Mentor arcs as you wanted, getting access to a new pool for each of them. You could still only have one pool at a time in a build, but you could unlock access to as many or as few as you are interested in.

Most of the Patron Pools don't thrill me with their functionality, some pools mix well on some characters, but not all by any stretch. There's a sense of accomplishment and immersion that I get from them however that the APPs just can't match. When it comes down to it, they're a *special* pool of powers you get access to, I don't think it's a bad idea to need to do more to unlock that access than merely reaching level 41.

I'm always in favor of giving the players more options for customization, and giving them options for how they do it, whether it be the simplicity of moving a slider in an options menu or the precision of numerous keybind commands (preferably the versatility of both). I know I'd use it.

I would not want the superpower to actually "become" my character in game and have my sex life limited to ERP in Pocket D or inappropriately timed emotes. Though I would kinda like only having to sleep during server maintenance...

Sorry, but restricting sales of Purples and PVP IOs just isn't sufficient. Just because you can "casually" buy most normal IO sets and procs for Hero/Villain Merits after a couple days work (except for the ones missing from the sale menu... is that WAI or just some of them were missed in the process?) doesn't mean I want to accidentally drop a LotG: Recharge reduction... and extending the idea so that you can't sell any set IO recipes would be annoying too, since a lot of them are junk that's really not good for anything more than converting to inf, even though some are as useful (or even more useful) than many purples.

A buyback option on the vendor would solve the problem without telling the players what they are and aren't allowed to sell.

Yeah, avoiding spelling errors in the global is an added benefit, but focusing on that (even to the extent of adding *more* steps to an already cumbersome process by opening a text editor, sheesh) is kinda sidestepping the whole point.

Just want a quicker, easier way to mail-to-self, reducing as many steps as possible. As much as I like being able to mail inventory items, the process itself is kinda annoying (especially when in the process of dragging the item to the email window, I accidentally drag it across the edge on another window which ends up on top of the email window, forcing me to have to start over. Pain in the 5th point of contact I tell ya)

Just being able to Right-click, then click "mail to self" would be much less unpleasant, and sure as heck beat out having to pop PFF while I alt tab to notepad and so forth mid combat...