Extending All Travel Powers Past 20

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this thread is not often read by the dev's hence the part of the forims this is in: fun and games.

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This is the Suggestion and Ideas part of the forum.

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Okay, tell you what then. Try to think up 5 new powers for each Power Pool yourself. Make sure they fit in with the concept of the pool and make sure that they wouldn't unbalance the characters and that players couldn't gimp themselves by taking too many of these Pool Powers. Finally make sure that your powers are not exact duplicates of other powers that are already available in the game.

It's not as easy as you are thinking it is.



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I already made up 6 powers for one power pool. My goal is not to create the game, it's to give suggestions. When I make a suggestion, I might provide an example, but I never expect a developer to use it exactly as written.

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And for a player to take these powers, they would have to lose a whole other power pool or else decline taking some of their primary/secondary powers, because they wouldn't be able to slot them properly without the slots they'd lose to have those extra powers.

Sorry, but don't see it happening...ever. As Wicked_Wendy pointed out, most people don't like the fact that they have to take one power before they get their travel power, and I've only rarely seen people take the last power out of a travel power set because it takes a power choice that they could use for another attack, defense ability, etc.

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I have to disagree with that. I think most people like the prequisites. What they want is to be able to choose their transport power earlier, not just to avoid the prerequisites at all. Hover is incredibly useful with the recent changes and many individuals are using it once again because of the fact that it doesn't drop you when you're mezzed. Hasten is great, and Combat Jumping is also a good one. I think a majority of people have no problem with taking those powers.

I do like the "Death from Above" power listed in the OP. If I didn't have to take a whole bunch of powers before it, I'd be very tempted to have it at the expense of something else. It'd be a nice way to open up an attack on a spawn.

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Arc ID#30821, A Clean Break

The only problem with defeating the Tsoo is that an hour later, you want to defeat them again!
"Life is just better boosted!" -- LadyMage
"I'm a big believer in Personal Force Field on a blaster. ... It's your happy place." -- Fulmens

If anything I would prefer restructuring the lvl 20 options for travel powers. Replace group fly with a real combat flight. Reduce the def, but increase speed. Replace whirlwind with sonic boom, a PBAoE with moderate damage, disorient, and kb. Things like that. Adding new powers/options to the pool is not feasible as others have pointed out - what powers would you give up to have it? But realistically from my personal point, it doesn't matter what they do, AE is killing this game and, if Champions Online, DC Universe Online, or Star Trek Online is a decent option, I will be moving on to it.

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Let me reinstate my premise. I would like to see more powers in the pool powers.

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Those restrictions that you're chafing against are there for your own protection...

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No they aren't. Because if you screwed up your character, you could simply respec him. Or even REROLL him.
Has a developer ever made that statement?

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Yes. The original pre-beta game system was a framework which allowed people to pick from a variety of small pools with no AT or powerset restrictions. The end result was that a handful of crafty people made badly overpowered characters who found nothing even remotely difficult, and a lot of people made completely gimped characters and couldn't accomplish pretty much anything at all, making the game impossible to balance. The restrictions that came out of this - the AT and powerset vs. power pool structure - was a direct response to this problem and a means to lock people into specific powers and FORCE them to build at least somewhat logically, while at the same time limiting the raw net performance achievable via the "proper" build.

This is in the old Rick Dakan diaries, has been stated by many developers over the years and is what pushed the game back to a 2004 launch date.

For what it's worth, it's useful to remember that power POOLS are not power SETS. As such, they don't have the same width and breadth of powers and the same scope of functions. A power pool is a generic, typically low-key power that is common between many heroes and not specifically specific to any specific origin or power source. Common things like flight and teleportation, obviously, but also the simpler things like stealth, general fitness and even basic leadership. Things not inherent in, say, the ability to shoot fire from your hands. These aren't meant to full, character-defining sets of powers, and if you feel that they should be, you're better off lobbying for a change in basic policy in redefining what pools are supposed to mean.

Swelling power pools to 9 powers is a mistake in my eyes, especially since it then further entails the swelling of all Epic pools to 9 powers, which ends up giving you access to a grand total of 7 powersets, each with 9 powers, for a total of 63 possible picks out of 24 power picks to level 50. This returns us to the age-old problem of a game that makes it easy to gimp yourself if you're not well-versed in its intricacies, and at the same time makes it easy to make overpowered characters if you are. This blows not only contemporary power balance out of the water, but ANY shot at a balance point that applies to all players, which to my eyes is unacceptable.

I could see adding an extra power to existing power pools. Precedent for this now exists in some 5-power Epics. Precident also exists that this isn't a "better" power put in as the next big step, but rather as an alternate mid-tier power there to complement the pool's utility. Munitions Mastery didn't get Long Range Missile Rocket Barrage, after all, they got another mid-tier power in the face of Survaillance. If/when we see other pools expanded, expect them to follow the same framework.

As for what the sets could use as a fifth power, I'll have to agree with what the others have said - thinking up powers that are both useful and not overpowered, yet still make sense within the context of the pool isn't trivial. The fact that a lot of pools are punctuated by silly stuff like Group Teleport or Whirlwind speaks to the difficulty of coming up with reasonable stuff.

About the only thing I can think of off-hand is adding a sort of "Combat Teleport" option for Teleportation, which would have no activation animation (unlike Teleport, which has a good 2-second activation time) but would only have a range of about 20 feet, as well as a few seconds' worth of recharge. This should give a teleporter the ability to actually teleport in combat without it feeling like driving an articulated lorry up a 30 degree hill.

Beyond that, I'm stumped.

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