peterpeter

I like this idea. The way I'd have it work is that each power would produce a pet with a different effect. Something like...

1. Enemy immobilize
2. taunt/distract
3. Melee combat pet
4. enemy debuff
5. ranged attack

The first power would be like an attack, which would immobilize one enemy, or perhaps cause a fear effect. The second would summon a pet with 1 hp but a big taunt effect, to distract an enemy (the death animation could be running away instead of falling down dead). The third power would summon an actual combat pet, but one no more powerful than what you can get with temp powers in the game now. The fourth power in the pool would be some kind of enemy debuff, maybe a fear effect or loss of accuracy or something. The last power would be a ranged attack.

The actual effect of the powers isn't the important part anyhow. The fun part would be the animations. Using power customization... which they really need to get around to adding to power pools anyhow... you can choose from several pets for each power in the pool. The enemy immobilize could be a snake to wrap around someone's legs, or a circling hawk to inhibit their movement, or a squid that you throw at their legs, or big spiders putting webbing on their feet, or whatever. The taunt pet and the melee combat pet could be whatever they have a rig for: dogs, birds, etc. The enemy debuff could be a snake spitting venom or a lion roaring, or a bird pecking at them, or bees stinging them or whatever. The ranged attack could be birds or bees, or maybe you throw a wolverine at them (fastball special!)

It would be fun to have a cowboy themed dual pistols blaster with a pet wolf and a pet eagle, right out of the pages of Max Brand.

No patch today? I thought maybe the hero merit option would show up today.

A lot depends on mission difficulty, team size, powersets, and players. Solo, it was no trouble for me. The ambushes were small, I could survive the alpha, and then I took them apart. It wasn't a big deal, possibly because a regen scrapper has no psi weakness. On a medium sized team, we were flattened by the first ambush, but I don't remember the rest being a problem. We knew what was coming. I don't remember how we handled it. We might even have waited in the hallway while a stalker triggered the doohickey. At any rate, we didn't have the same experience you did.

It's not uncommon for one mission to be devastatingly impossible to one team and a cakewalk to another team. Ambushes can be a fun challenge for one group, and a guaranteed team wipe for another. I don't think the devs are trying to force people to buy wakies, or anything else sinister. I think they're just trying to make a mission which is the perfect level of challenge for everyone in every circumstance, and they're failing, of course. But they try different things sometimes, and get different results. But always, some people like it and some people hate it. That's true of everything they do.

Hey Goat! Welcome back. I'm not sure exactly when you left, but try typing "/auctionhouse" and see if anything happens. There is a fair bit of new content beyond the tutorial. Not necessarily stuff you'd want to play more than once, but I think it's worth playing. I'm not on very often myself these days, but if there's something I can give you a hand with, let me know. And yes, Fulmens is around, and the Crazy 88's have not let up a bit.

New archetypes are a tough question. It's much easier to think of new powersets. Scrambling existing powerset categories is a good start, but a lot of the combinations are non-starters. For example, how would an empathy/super reflexes character make it through the tutorial? I guess you can brawl the Shivans to death. I think the pets are designed with the assumption that they will be supported by the buffs/debuffs of the mastermind. That means a thugs/katana character would be severely underpowered. There are also limits to what the devs will allow because of stacked effects. We'll never see a control/control character.

The EATs are interesting. Kheldians can more or less switch from blaster to tank. It might be interesting to have something, and maybe this is what GG had in mind, where you transform between many archetypes. One powerset for such an AT might be Animals. When you're in rhinoceros form, you're basically a tank. Tiger form would be more like a brute. Wolverine or honey badger could be a scrapper form. The black panther form would be like a stalker. Another powerset for the same AT could be Mecha. It would be basically the same, with transforming into the same melee archetypes, except the Mecha forms would simulate different powersets. For example, the Animal/Tiger form is similar to a claws/sr brute, while the Mecha/Killbot form is more like an energy melee/energy armor brute. Another powerset would be Elemental. The Fire form would be like a fire/fire scrapper, while the earth form would be a stone/stone brute, and the water form an ice/ice tank, and the air form would be like some kind of stalker. Different visually of course, but similar powers.

The more I think about it, the more I like it.

Apparently I'm not making it tonight either. Hadn't even realized the time until just now, and I still have a long list of things I need to do tonight. Too bad, I haven't logged in Chronosian since 2xp weekend. I have some new powers to play with now!

As I understand it, it's a delicate balance of distances. You want your pets close enough to benefit from supremacy and to be in bodyguard mode, but far enough away from you to keep them safe from AoEs aimed at you. Easier said than done. I'd suggest sending them to a specific location in front of her while you run behind her. Hopefully she'll turn to face you (that's where provoke comes in handy) and that should spare your pets while still keeping them somewhat close. Popping a few purples for you might keep you alive while the pets take her down.

Turning down the difficulty might be the easiest approach. Teammates is probably the second easiest. Depending on when you play and on which server, I might be able to help you, but I don't have many high-level redside characters.

There are also a variety of extra pets and other temp powers in the game, but acquiring them may range from inconvenient to impossible depending on your account details.

Standing back and resummoning your pets over and over while they charge in and die might work, slowly. Maybe send them in a couple at a time and watch her endurance bar. Maybe you can tire her out. AoE attacks tend to use more endurance than single target attacks.

I skimmed through and didn't see this exact idea come up, though some were similar. Kheldians get a bonus based on the archetypes of their teammates. What if the EB got a bonus based on the AT of the players he is fighting against? When faced with more tankers, the EB does more damage. When faced with more controllers, the EB gets some status protection, etc.

If it added 10% to prices from selling to vendors and claiming inf from the market, then I might be interested. That would basically cancel out market fees, which would be significant when selling lots of purples and the like. But if it only works on inf gained from defeating enemies, and it can be killed by those enemies? That works out to pretty much 0 value. I would only get it if I really wanted a Leprechaun following me around, which sadly is not suitable for any of my characters. I'd much rather get the German Shepard, but I haven't because it's kind of pricey for me, for a non-combat pet.

Any word on a patch today? After last night's unplanned downtime, I'm less confident about converters showing up today.

you come down a fire escape by walking forward, taking a step to the left, walking backwards, taking a step to the right, walking forward, etc.

Argh!

Fantastic. I've been too busy to spend much time on the beta server this round, but now I'm really looking forward to this issue. And it's almost here!