Unlockable Archetypes: A call to action

I don't know about anyone else, but on my first playthroughs of CoH and CoV to level 50, I was most encouraged because I was intrigued with the epic archetypes (you always want what you can't have). Then, understandably, for a n00b (such as myself) a little glamour is lost.

They were a brilliant business scheme, even though no one really likes khelds, because it kept people playing.

Why haven't we seen more of this?! I'm not suggesting that the devs spend years making a long system of epics, but how about a side project? How about unlockable powersets (for instance, quarterstaff for scrappers, or pistols for blasters), or more of a focus on unlockable customization (how about a crossbow?), that requires people to get to certain levels with certain archetypes in certain ways. That way, people won't feel they've completed everything by the time they get to 50 with a hero and a villain (mind you, they haven't, but it may feel like it).

However, this may just be a dream. obviously, a lot of playtesting is required for this to happen. But surely one or two unlockable powersets could be introduced in an issue, and we'd still have room for new content (see issue 13).

The Devs also said that making Kheldians unlock at 50 was a 'big mistake'. They only made VEATs unlock at 50 for equality sake.

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I like Khelds, especially the one played by my friend, he does a kick@$$ tanking job on his Kheld. "No one" and "Everybody" are two terms that people should refrain from using, because it's rarely if ever true.

Don't you find that each alt you make is a challenge in their own right for unlocking powers as you go along?

You get your first 50, and can then play a Kheldian, but there's still a lot of untapped power content in the game.

You want Fulcrum Shift? Go play a Kinetics Defender for 32 levels, or a Controller for 38.

Want to know hat its like to pilot a Tanker once they've got all their defences together? Go play one for the next 100+ hours then. Want to go and own all those Malta and Carnies who gave you Blaster so much trouble? Keep playing that Dark Armour Tank into the 40s!

And so on. Most powersets have some pretty good stuff in the higher tiers. Some even combine in interesting ways. I've played Storm Summoning, but never on a Controller with a mass immobilise with -KB, which makes Tornado into quite a different power.

That's what kept me playing, even if there wasn't an explicit unlockable at the end each time. 3 1/2 years later I'm still not done.

If the developers do introduce new powersets, I'd rather they leave it to us the players to decide when to try them out than force us to play through something else first.


Account wide badges for getting to 50 on certain archetypes could be interesting though. eg "Seasoned Tank" for 1 level 50 tanker, "Master Tank" for 5 level 50 tanks. Could even have these unlock a few cosmetic options, like costume parts perhaps.

I wanna do the Coralax shuffle, too!

Okay, okay, I'm sorry I said that no one likes khelds. It's just that something like two years ago there would be one in every sewer team, and I have yet to see one this year.

I also take back my comments about the game seeming to be over at 50. I've had a change of heart (for example, my main villain was an mm, and I was a devoted mm-er, but I started a corruptor and it was awesome). But you have to admit, extra rewards are nice (especially power costumizations! How about pool power customization, huh? Color tintable super speed? Think about it).

I wasnt a big fan of eat's being unlocked at 50, but now that they are unlocking them at 20, seems pretty lame to me. You should have to do an arc to unlock them or something. 1-20 and you earn yourself epicness (may not apply so much blueside, but really how else do you describe widows/soldiers?) Talk about everyone getting a trophy...

My biggest concern with it is that the special quality of the characters is that you're playing something tied into the storyline of the game rather than a generic do-whatever-story-you-want template. With Soldiers of Arachnos, there's no problem; even by level 20 villainside you'll have gotten plenty of experience with Soldiers of Arachnos kicking you around and you'll be eager to do some kicking back. With Kheldians, though, you'll have almost no knowledge of them and hence no reason to care about the thing you just unlocked. Off the top of my head the only Kheldian-related content that non-Kheldians have access to is the ITF, the Moonfire TF, and Twilight's Son (whose arc has nothing to do with Kheldians, but hey, he's a Kheldian.) Sunstorm is hanging out in AP but he blows you off if you're not a Kheld. The Council fields some Kheld-related enemies but you don't find out anything about the connection unless you're a Kheldian yourself, as I recall.

In other words, unless you've done the Moonfire task force, there's no hook for the Kheldian backstory that makes unlocking one interesting in and of itself, and no reason to go "Oh boy! I can play one of these myself now!" To me, there are two obvious solutions to that: either add more Kheldian-related content in low levels that non-Kheldians can access, or make the Moonfire TF (or a new story arc with similar amounts of Kheldian backstory) unlock the Kheldian ATs.

when he said no one really likes, i took the word really as an attempt to soften the statement into something more like not many people like.

Its pretty obvious that this was his intent and not to use the word really as the word literally, seeing how he himself likes Khelds...