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For a long time, people have been discussing alter egos and origin stories. Today, I would like to introduce:
The Back Story Power Pools
Back Story Power Pools are Power Pools available at a level 4 (or some other very early level). These powers represent the experiences that a character has had in their life previous to becoming a hero/villain that have shaped how they approach the Herculean task of changing the world.
Back Story Power Pools (from here on referred to as BSPPs) provide benefits to the players that enhance the experience of the world of CoX without altering the strategies of fighting or detracting from those who choose not to use them.
The restrictions for picking Power Pool Powers still apply. You still need to have 1 or 2 to pick 3, and two powers to pick 4.
Here are some examples of ideas.
Rogue
Even before you began your official career in Paragon City/The Rogue Isles, you led a disreputable life. Whether you were a high profile hit man or a self righteous pick pocket, you understand how complicated crimes work.
1) Pilfer Your hands are faster than most peoples eyes, allowing you to grab and hide objects at incredible speeds. Due to this, your interruption time for mission related objects is lowered 20%.
2) Eavesdrop Your ear is constantly to the ground on the subject of big crimes. You know when they are going to happen before anyone else. You must complete one less newspaper/radio mission before unlocking a Safeguard/Mayhem mission.
3) Criminal Efficiency - Every second is an opportunity to either slip up or hit it big. You value these seconds, and make the most of them. When you enter a Safeguard/Mayhem Mission, your team immediately gets a 2 Minute bonus. This power may only be stacked once.
4) Blueprint Knowledge A good rogue knows the area before attempting to get anything out of it. You are the best warrior you know, and glowing mission objectives appear on your map when you enter the mission.
Obviously, the purpose of the Rogue Power Pool is to increase ones enjoyment of the newspaper/radio missions. This can be great for those that dont like the story of CoX and just want to play.
Student
You may have been a college student. You may have been a religious scholar. In the grand scheme of things, you study hard and learn quickly, a skill that can be invaluable to a developing hero.
1) Subservient When someone tells you what to do, you do it well. When you are in lackey/sidekick mode, your level is increased by an additional level, making you the same strength as your Mentor/Boss.
2) Protective You take care of your Mentor/Boss loyally. Toggle: While this power is active and you are within an appropriate range of your Mentor/Boss, they receive a defense bonus.
3) Visual Learner Learning by example is a specific strength of yours. When you complete a mission in Sidekick/Lackey mode, you receive an experience bonus.
4) Studious Through your studies youve valued mistakes and negative experiences, as they are the best teacher of all. When in sidekick/lackey mode, your experience debt burns off at a twenty-five percent higher rate.
This is a good Power Pool for beginners. Additionally, it can serve as an incentive for players to make long term duo characters.
[u]Although I did not write it out, I suggest a symmetrical version of this called "Instructor", which rewards people for being Mentors/Bosses. The third power of that pool would allow one to have two lackeys/sidekicks.[u]
Lone Wolf
Youve been by yourself most of your life. That doesnt bother you, though. In fact, not much bothers you anymore.
1) Inner Strength When you are on a mission without a team, Inspirations provide an additional 5% bonus.
2) Unshaken Youve been outnumbered so many times, it doesnt frighten you. When more than four enemies are simultaneously attacking (drawn aggro from four enemies), you receive an 8% attack bonus.
3) Vicious Strike When you are alone, sometimes you have to play dirty, just to survive. When you are on a mission solo, you have a slightly increased chance of stunning enemies.
4) Wanderer- The more you are by yourself, the more you learn. When you complete a mission solo, you receive an experience bonus.
This is for the breed of folk that want to solo City of Heroes/Villains, or for those that just want to feel hardcore by diving into the fray themselves.
Merchant
Before all of this started, you dealt in currency, and lots of it. You understand its value more than most people.
1) Silver Tongue You can haggle and negotiate easily, always getting the better bargain. When buying Enhancements, you receive a 10% discount.
2) Businessperson Your ability to come off trustworthy always gets you in with people. When completing missions for non-broker contacts, your relationship meter fills more rapidly.
3) Haggler Somehow, when someone buys from you, they always think that they are coming out ahead, even though you completely ripped them off. When selling Enhancements, you sell them for an additional 10%.
4) Business Deal Friends give friends discounts. Your Kindred Contacts sell you Enhancements at an additional 20% discount.
These enhancements enable people to be more focused on enhancing their character and contacts, driving them to complete the story missions. Also, it may influence trade, as Merchants will inevitably buy enhancements and then sell them for profit at the market.
Obviously, many of these will have to be tweaked. There are several more that I have in mind, but I am not trying to sell the individual pools, I am trying to sell the idea in general.
What do you think?
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Not reading all 9 pages, but here's my take.
I love the idea. They're useful, they don't assume any particular origin, and they actually encourage styles of play that up until now have proved, uh, counterproductive (yes, i soloed a Kinetic Defender from 1-25... I'm nuts.)
But I also think there may be little 'build room' for a lot of players/characters.
So here's my suggestion.
Have these powers available at the "enhancement slot" levels, as an alternative to extra slots for your other powers. So instead of sacrificing a power choice, you lose a set of enhancement slots (at least two, at most three.) This will make the other powers slightly weaker, BUT you gain the advantage of the background pool choices.
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
/sign but they should be choosable inherents like nem staff or ghost axe
Hmm, pretty cool.
This is sweet 
/signed
And maybe one of the Merchant ones could give you a reduction on your fee for the BM.
That's what I was hoping. A Merchant would be ideal for the BM. My main, Julian Drake, is a multi billionaire, so I'd just slap on Merchant on the side and feel a bit more IC when it was easier for me to buy things than the average person.
His best friend, Steel Butterfly, is a bit of a loner who can barely tolerate him. It'd be quite fun if, after the Black Market purchasing, they went into a mission and she was like "Psh, let's see your money do THIS."
^_^ Basic idea.
In other news: This idea has hit flame status! Woot!
This has been a random Necroposting.
Its too late for Issue 11, but lets try and get this idea in I12, eh?
Go back and read the first post!
I like the idea! Tweaking, yes. Scrapping all together, probably not. 
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Not a bad concept. They're independent of combat and largely innate and you've kept their proposed values to be moderate, yet valuable rewards. I'd only be concerned that the absolute lack of combat value may make anyone spending 3 slots here to be labled "combat gimp" by some groups. I think THAT would be unfair... I don't doubt that the hero could still function well on some difficulty levels, but the impact of these selections will have to be weighed to insure that players aren't paying too high a price in combat performance for their out-of-combat benefits
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i think it would be awesome..but it would need a way to be implemented without taking up a slot..kinda like the origin powers
Wow, this is all brilliantly done. :3
This idea should be brought back from the dead before every issue until a dev comments on it.
"Samual_Tow - Be disappointed all you want, people. You just don't appreciate the miracles that are taking place here."
<QR>
I think this is a brilliant idea. I also believe much more of these backstory power pools should be open. The idea obviously needs tweaks, but nevertheless it is an awesome idea.
Agreed! (shameless bump)
"Samual_Tow - Be disappointed all you want, people. You just don't appreciate the miracles that are taking place here."
/signed.
Really cool concept!
/sign o.o
Meh. I guarantee almost everyone would be a Student with a respecced 50 being an instructor.
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Meh. I guarantee almost everyone would be a Student with a respecced 50 being an instructor.
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Interesting. Didn't think of there being a standard type. I wouldn't bother with it most of the time. It requires lots of team play and heavy reliance on Lackies/Sidekicks for that to happen. People that Solo or don't like traveling out of their power level (which oft requires going to places too difficult for one's self) would find Student more of a burden than anything.
Still, an interesting thought...
/signed
I've read most of this thread and I have to say that the concept of it being an optional thing like the titles would be best. There are some characters I have that I end up going 'wtf - I don't need another power' but others that I have to end up not taking powers I want simply because I want something from one of my main pools. If it was something that every character had the option of doing without having to sacrifice powers for it wouldn't unbalance the game.
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If it was something that every character had the option of doing without having to sacrifice powers for it wouldn't unbalance the game.
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That seems to be the general idea. I think the idea to unlock them much like Titles has been the most popular idea so far. In addition to everything else, but you have to go on a mission to get the ones you want.
Thanks!
I like these ideas. They could easily be expanded to include other backstories as well. My refinement would be to make these inherent 'powers' that a character receives by electing the backstory to begin with. Therefore, he would not have to use actual power selections. The benefits would arrive automatically at select levels and whatever benefit the developers decide on would therefore be either decidedly low or so situation specific that it would not be unbalancing.
Overall, in theory, this is very much inline with the first idea I had when I wrote my first suggestion post regarding a character's personal life and so forth.
I'm all for anything that fleshes out the 'other side' of our characters.
I've just finished reading the entire thread, and I must say I find the concept as a whole interesting. I love making stories for my toons and this would make it all worthwhile. I think some of the more interesting BSPP's mentioned here have been Lone Wolf and Revenge. I eagerly await v2.0.
My mind is like a badger with a water gun. It makes no sense, but it sure is entertaining.
@Striggoi(Heroes Unlimited/Villains Unlimited)
21 50s on Guardian and counting
I saw this suggestion before, and I could've sworn I already replied to this thread when I first saw it, but it looks like I didn't.
I love this idea, not necessarily the exact examples you gave, but the idea in general. I would so love if the devs created something similar to this. It would add another layer of customizability and a chance for ones background story to have some kind of effect to what our characters can do.
If something like this gets implemented, I hope that it will have a wide range of choices.
I like the idea, but i don't like the fact that the opportunity cost for selecting one of these is a real combat-aiding power. (do they count as power pools too? In which case the oppotunity cost for selecting one of these could be one power and one pool choice).
I'd prefer it if it was counted seperately. (i.e. by lv50, you can get x number of powers, and x number of background powers).
where background powers are not compulsory (so people who want them will just end up with up to four more powers.)
or perhaps the cost of selecting one pool costs just one power. So instead of a power, you select one of these pools (and you'd recieve the powers as you level up. So like, the first one when you select the pool. The second at lv20, the third at lv30...etc.).
or these could be given out as a reward for a TF/trail/storyarc. So doing the "lonewolf" story arc grants you this background set. And you can only get one, and you get the powers in the pool as you level.
Anyway, support the concept. Don't support the actual mechanics of it. I would never sacrifice a real power for one of these.
/signed, but only if they're Inherent and granted as you level as other have suggested.
Also, this may be *way* too complicated to tack on, but: What if, instead of choosing your pool, it's chosen by your playstyle! On the way to level 10, the game tracks the way you play:
<ul type="square">[*][u]Student[u]: You spend most of your time fighting as a Sidekick. [*][u]Instructor[u]: Students can get the option to become an Instructor later in the game depending on how often they Mentor other players.[*][u]Lone Wolf[u]: You spend most of your time fighting solo. [*][u]Merchant[u]: You sell most of the inspirations and enhancements you get. [*][u]Rogue[u] is a bit harder to make work this way. It may be tied with Lone Wolf, in that it counts how often you fight solo, but also in how well you judge your own strength.[/list]
I like this and the concepts. of my characters their backgrounds are mixed as well. if I had to define them according to the list I'd have to say that my main is a merchant, and her other siblings are, Student for the Military strategy buff, Merchant for the hot and sexy super model, and lone wolf for the discarded robot. but my one character I have doesn't fit in any of those catagories. He's more the jokester type. He's willing to run at superspeed into the side of a building to prove that he can bounce off a certain distance.
Maybe another set could help. Call it comic relief.
Time-killer: Do to your ability to keep others amused gives you an edge on timed missions. You get a 15 minute bonus on timed missions
Lighthearted: When you team with others, the group gets a +5% bonus against Holds
Slap-Stick: Because of your antics, you get a +7% bonus to taunting the enemy.
Distraction: You attract so much attention to yourself from the enemy that your group gets a +10% bonus to their accuracy.
I don't know about the numbers, but I was inspired by the other sets and came up with this set that is kinda tank/scrapper/brute oriented.