Free Form Archetypes

OK, first I like the system we have and have no overwhelming desire to see a massive change. Although I do have a question. Is the point of wishing for freeform that people want different types of damage in a build? Fire/Ice/Energy for example.

I ask this because the new dual pistol set allows you pick what damage you you are doing. Granted the majority is lethal, but am I the only person that thinks this might be a tiny baby step toward a more freeform build.

Could we see some sort of armored tech suit AT that has multiple damage types in the future? Perhaps not being able to walk through all the sets in an AT and Cherry pick but being able to select heat vision or X-ray eyes for your eye beams, or have your left gauntlet be a flame thrower and your right gaunlet shoot energy beams or a Sonic assault using a system like the swap ammo system.

Or perhaps a magic set that has a teir 3 attack with a swap spells option that allows you to call upon Earth(smashing), Air(lightning), Fire, or Water(Ice) to go along with other spells that deal "magical" energy damage or call upon dark energies depending on the spell you pick for that tier.

Could it be that the Swap ammo system is the first step by the devs to see just how freeform they can really be and keep things balanced?

Or do people just want their Fire snipe to LOOK like the Rad snipe but still do fire damage, because that is an entirely different conversation that does not involve power choice as much as animation choice.

Or am I missing the point entirely?

I submit, its not impossible to balance freeform RPGs, its just so close to impossible its not worth the effort. Even pen and paper games arent balanced. D&D, the ones that have been doing it forever dont hqve it balanced. Many builds for players are much stronger than others. In D&D they assume the DM will balance the party using his judgement.

In this thread alone we have strong examples of min/maxed builds that would be able to blow firekins controlers at farming and rad/sonic defenders on defeating AVs.

I still think the best thing to do would be to allow people special quests at high levels to add one or two powers from any set in the game. This is dangerous in itself and may require some powers, like fulcrem shift, to be unavailabe. But, I think it would go a long way to adding more individuality to each toon. I also think it would allow people to make some of the concept toons they have been wanting to make. I think it gives just enough protection from rampant abuse.

Would the already rich get richer? Yes, Firekins would get a little stronger, but other builds might get closer to catching up.

I think its important to distinguish between RP and the creation of themed characters. While there may not be a large amount of RPing there is a large amount of players that pick a theme for their character even explaining their origin story in the character bio. Its definatly not uncommon to create a character with a concept in mind instead of strictly going the min/max route and hitting the random costume button. It goes back the old days of doodling superheroes in your notebook at school. Look at the combination of powers on some of the foes. For instance the Watchers (Soldiers of Rularuu) who have chomp, optic blast and quill blast. While we aren't to the point where we can make giant floating eyeball characters that is a decent example of something that doesn't fit into the tidy little boxes the powersets force you into.