New Power Set Ideas

I looked and could not find a thread on this topic so I thought I would start one. I was considering new powersets that could be implemented in the future. Perhaps the Devs will see a cool idea and run with it based on this list.

Just for fun I would love to see a powerset designed at "borrowing" others' powers. Kind of like Rogue on the x-men. I think it would be very interesting to see the possiblities.

What are your ideas?

If a Rogue type powerset 'borrowed' powers, it would be way to grief friendly. As such that wouldn't happen. If instead it merely duplicated power, that might be more reasonable, but it would be impossible to balance. I don't see it happening.

To be honest, I pretty much just expect more mix and match of what we see already. Buffs, debuffs, heals, PBAOES, targeted AOEs, and single target attacks. Pick some, pretty them up and call them whatever. Anything outside of that is likely to either be outside the game engine, or is too hard to balance.

I don't think that a powerset allowing you to borrow other's powers would really be possible to do given the way powers work, although kinetics does kill the same thematic niche (you steal your opponents energy).

The one new powerset I'd like to see is a weapon or gadgets based control set to give Controllers an option along the thematic lines of Assault Rifle, Devices and Traps. My personal suggestion would be to have it based on grenades since there are already a number of suitable in game powers to form the framework (add damage to Web Grenade and and Wide Area Web Grenade for the T1 and T2 for example).

In Freedom Force, I did a fair amount of work on setting up power mimicking through scripts and data. I ended up making a character who could borrow powers from any other character in the game whilst keeping her own.

The results were mixed, mainly because in a superhero game you typically fight lots of minions, whereas in a comic you fight supervillains (read Elite Bosses) almost exclusively.

Say you're on a mission fighting Warriors. You can mimick a bit of strength and maybe grow a medieval weapon. Next up, the Council - you get to mimic some guns and grenades? Tsoo would be a bit more fun, getting some temporary storm powers and teleportation, maybe kinetic powers or mind control.

You also suffer from "red dragon" syndrome, where enemies are often resistant to the damage they deal. Absorbing Behemoth fire powers to fight other Behemoths isn't that efficient.

On the flip side, a power-mimicker could be an AV killer. I doubt the devs would let you absorb Reichsman's full power and 100 MAg Stun him through purple triangles. Even in comics, at this point Rogue typically gets an "overload" or turns temporarily evil because of the force of the personality she's absorbed.

I guess all I'm saying is that power copying is not as fun as it sounds, and incredibly hard to balance - thats lots of dev work for low returns. That was my experience of it.

New power set idea? I've thought for some time that insect themed powers would be cool. A few power ideas for an insect buff/debuff set:

Blood Feed : Healing and damage from symbiotic insects. A swarm flies out from you, attacks the enemy and returns to you giving health. Sort of like Life Drain, but doing Lethal/Toxic.

Locusts: A targeted AoE that creates a swarm that distracts and confuses the enemy. I'm thinking like a targeted AoE version of Arctic Air; a mix of confusion, slow and fear.

Consume Armor: A -def and/or -res attack; insects "swarm the enemy, consuming their armor"

Concealing Swarm: Stealth power; a Steamy Mist clone made of bug swarms.

Killer Bees : A large swarm of killer bees appears and moves about attacking; causing lethal/toxic damage and fear; sort of Tornadolike with fear instead of kb.

Army Ants: A high DoT damage attack, probably a Tier 9. A dense swarm of insects appears on the ground and slowly moves away from the user, doing damage as it goes.