If you could redesign a canon faction (or two)

Well, the sequel mission arc to my Secret Weapons AE arc (before several maps were pulled and various AE limits added in beta severely damaged the arc and made me put the whole thing on ice until I felt ready to retackle it) was going to partially retcon the Paragon Protectors as being Crey experiments connected to experiments that predate Brainstorms proliferation work and the Origin of Power revelations. I think there's a lot of fertile ground to cover there.


Although to be honest, if I could redesign any canon group now, it would be the Malta. I would add to the canon that they have secretly reorganized and have been observing and conducting reconnaissance of Praetorian Earth for years, and have been building an arsenal of technology with the intent to launch a surgical strike on Emperor Cole that draws the rest of the Primal Earth into a war with the Praetorians. And I would update them to make them a lot more badass.

Consider me /signed to most of the above in this thread.

The main thing I'd like to see, if I was to pick one thing, would be an enemy group spawn profiling system that takes each foe in a group (minions, lts., bosses, uniques) and gives the stats on them for every five levels on a range of 1-50 (e.g., 1-5, 6-10, etc.). That way your spawning program selects foes with powers / defenses appropriate to every 5-level segment, and you can have every foe group available from 1-50 with minimum fuss.

I know AE automatically matches the player to the level of the content. But it does not automatically match the levels of the foes to each other, and it does not really address the issue of how some foes are designed to be fought at early (trainer or DO) levels, and some are designed to be fought at later (SO + Stamina) levels. It would also clear up the annoying problem of level gaps within a group.

The next thing I'd want after this would be customized named bosses for all enemy groups. That's what I do in my arcs; it's not much trouble, and it has the added feature of showing / telling more story.

Speaking of which - and I apologize in advance for a tiny thread jack here - but I'd like the see content designed with more of an emphasis on storytelling-as-you-go, as opposed to the expository lumps we get from contacts and clues that many players never see or read. In my AE arcs I try to tell as much story as I can through pop-up windows, dialog, and mission objectives. As far as I can tell it works pretty well, but it could be helped with the addition of a few more tools.

For the Warriors; I'd make higher level ones that not only have access to powersets like Shields and Dual Blades; I'd create a version that has access to looted/recovered magical weapons with nasty secondary effects ( and cool FX ). Also, Warriors with Willpower would be thematic, and nasty.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Castle I've always wanted to expand upon the Legacy Chain. They are underused and interesting.

Agreed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Castle If we ever had a "scourge" like event, I'd like to ditch the Goldbrickers and put The Family back to the low to mid-level roots. The idea of level 40 mobsters with Tommy Guns still boggles my mind.

I kinda like the Goldbrickers. As for the Family, I've seen some nice ideas in the Suggestions forums on how to buff them for higher levels. Personally, I'd have more Superstrength types due to their 'Dine usage, and have them start using more high tech weapons that they've "acquired". Being criminals, it would be thematic for higher level Family to be armed with a variety of weapons stolen from other factions.

"Hey, hero! Check out my new toy!"

< fires Rikti plasma rifle >

Oh, another idea for high level Family: Pinstripe Powersuits!

The Warriors....given that they are supposedly the main perptrators in the Hellion-Outcast-Warrior artifact trade, they have a serious lack of people with strange powers.

While I admit that the majority of them (including all minions) should simply be really skilled martial artists, I think there should be at least twice as many lieutenants as their currently are (total of 6) with the extra three having "weird" abilities based on artifact use.

OR, probably better, you can design them like the Tsoo, with lots of strangely powered bosses and a small selection of predictable minions

Really, these guys should be going toe-to-toe with the Tsoo for martial weirdness. With the Warriors basing their powers on artifacts and "gifts from the gods" in contrast to the Tsoo bosses that learn strange, mystical arts.

Agree to Banished Pantheon and Warriors - BanPan could be a much bigger threat and even the CoT is working to stop them while the Warriors are about as threatening as Steve Urkel.

If I was able to muck around with some canon factions, I'd work on making Longbow, Vanguard and Wyvern fit together. Currently they are three different factions that have a similar alignment if different methods, with Longbow dominating. I'd look to make them follow a more well defined ranking system (i.e. costume changes so they don't all look so bland, especially Longbow). To that end I'd take the PCPD as a good model - as they level up they end up looking different and having different abilities. And by 'fit together', I also mean 'fight each other when necessary'. Although aligned, they do have their differences.

And if I had the ability to fool around with the lore, I'd start a Clockwork War. The Clockwork King isn't the most stable of incredibly powerful telekinetics and if he started to doubt himself I'm sure that would manifest as an opposing Clockwork side. Boomtown would be the setting for this war, the King having taken over the ruins and built a Clockwork Kingdom in the rubble.