Suggestion: Police/Agents Powerset

Since police might be rather limiting I'd like to suggest a police like power set called agents.

Well two reasons. First off police are in CoH, Cov and GR making it a power set that really works in all three places.

Second the police in this game are pretty cool well some of them anyway. I think the higher level cops in CoH and the Pretorian PD are pretty good designs. The police captains....well not so much. Still over all they have some good visual designs which is important in a pet power set. Further it would be a good power set for Pretorian and Hero master minds that still works for villian master minds.

I think the Pretorian Police profile page already shows what three pet tier break down could look like Link if you haven't seen them yet. Just tweeking the uniforms so they are somewhat more generic allowing people to roll play them as whatever would be fine with me.

I realize with Demons just being released and MM's power sets being so very specific and a little one note that a new MM power set probably isn't on the top of anyone's list but I just think it would be fun and as I said I think most of the police in this game look pretty cool.

I won't bore you with a made up powers list spelling on their three long ranged attack, three pet attacks, two upgrades and one special 'cause I'm sure you can fill in the blanks yourself.

I think this is a great idea, but to me the Dev's seem to like to tweak the game over and over to much, to add something like this! I'm also pretty sure they did think about this, but then things got messy in the board room about the Incarnate system and pooooof...gone. If they haven't thought about something like this, then they should be fired!

Well thanks, glad to see the idea has some support.

I'm surprised someone hasn't come in here just to suggest the highest tier cop should be a Tank with a Fireman's Axe so I'm glad to see someone else like the suggestion.

I like that particularly the names. "State of Emergency" hehe.

Thematically though I was thinking they would probably end up being a cross between the pretorian police and the agents from Crackdown myself so they probably would have a little bit more advanced weapons they pistols at least as I saw it. I figure if they are calling in a hero for a situations it was probably to big for beat cops to begin with.

What if you limited the normal cops to buff/debuff and mostly lethal damage powers starving them for any sort of control. Then make the unique ability power armor which armors up all your pets for a bit and switched their attacks to energy/smashing instead of lethal as well as gave each tier of minions 1 new control and defense power, armor, for the durration?

All: Knock back attacks become knock-up attacks
Tier 1: AoE Immobalize
Tier 2: Disorenting AoE gas grenades
Tier 3: Hold Ice Ray

Or possibly make the police normally very single target orients and have power armor give them all AoE attacks

Slight deviation from this, but I'd like to get a paragon PD MM set, since we can now have heroic MMs. Doesn't have to be paragon PD, but it would be cool to have different pets for each tier.

T1: Normal cops; humans
T2: PPD hardsuits or something equivalent; robots
T3: Superpowered cop; ala longbow warden or kheldian PPD

Frankly this feels too close to a reskinned mixture of Mercenaries and Thugs. If they're going to do this I'd rather they just add a Heroic version of each MM primary (and fix Mercenaries while they're at it) and reskin Mercenaries over to Police for blueside.

It seems like it'd be less work to give us graphic and "title" choices of pets instead of making entirely new primaries, but who knows.

I think this is a great idea. If the devs could figure out a way to create that barricade power that Nalrok suggested, I would be all for it.

I'd rather have a set of either "normal" police officers or the hard-suit power-suit ones with the hand mounted lasers.

I seem to remember somewhere that making new MM sets was extremely time consuming and that is why it basically very rarely happens (I suppose the expansion gave them a lot of resources to make Demons).

While I'd love every combination out there I can think of I don't see them putting any resources into something that already so closely matches an existing set (Mercs/Thugs). I doubt we're seeing any new MM sets for a long time (if ever) and if they do come out I imagine they will be very distinct and different in appearance and concept to the others.

Just roll Mercenaries and name your troops Swat Officer X or something...

I'd love to see some cops..

That'd be great..
I wouldn't be opposed to renaming mercs if you could customize their look a bit.

I strongly disagree with the idea that cops would have to be a thugs/merc hybrid. Yes all three would feature long ranged attacks as opposed to being a melee based set like Ninjas but there the similarity ends.

Each set has their own unique powers just like any othe AT's primaries even if they follow formula.

Thugs have leadership, a large around of AoE attacks, The Pyro for fire damage instead of all lethal, and a very strong tank Tier 3 who can absorb a lot of damage pet but in exchange they lack Control, Healing, Defuff and the lack of range with the Bruser.

Mercs have the Medic, AoE Control/debuff attacks, a ranged Teir 3 three pet but in exchange lack the same level of AoE damage, lack durability, have almost all lethal damage, and don't have any buff abilities.

Robots have energy damage, strong healing and buff, AoE attacks and have range but lack debuff, a special 1st tier pet, and control.

For the sake of arguments a simple in the box sort of Police set up could have more durability, some energy attacks instead of lethal, strong single target damage, single target debuff and single target control but lack AoE, Buffs, Healing and a lower damage cap. And if they go out of the box even a little bit like they did with Demons it could be anything. Demons, after all really are not that different from another shooter pet class except that they have access to a ton of different damage types and secondary effects as their unique advantage something previously just wasn't done with the other pets.

Playstyle wise where as Thugs are great for taking out large groups sending the tank in to round up foes, then letting the other thugs lead unleash massive AoE to take them all out but run into trouble against strong foes since one the tank drops the ther pets are quickly dispatched, while Mercs would open up with snipes to pick off opponents, drop some stun grenades and mow down a group with gun fire so by the time the enemy comes around (in theory if Mercs didn't suck) the mercs would have managed to cut the group down to a small handful that can be mopped up by the stronger commando. Police for their nitch would have a harder time with those large mobs with their lack of AoE and would have to rely on their better defense due to armor to keep them alive while the try to bring an enemy mob down but would do much better against bosses due to their higher durability and single target focus.

And that is just one in the box example off the top of my head. Cops could really have any set of unique advantages or disadvantages to want and if, in the unlikely event they actually ended up happening, were just a Thugs/Mercs hybrid rather then their own thing it is only because of a lack of imagination and I don't think the Devs here lack for imagination.

Well I disagree since I find the non-humans with gun sets such as Zombies, Ninjas and Demons to be pretty meh and I like Thugs and Robots so from my POV I'd much rather see a coll Police/Agents with unique powers rather than say Aboninations, Animals or Plants which I'm just not going to play.

I think the biggest impediment to adding new MM pets is powers. Everytime you add a power, you have to balance it...
As a former game dev, I know that this means slim to no chance of adding new pets, except with major releases (like going rogue for instance)...

HOWEVER, using the same powersets, but with new charaters is much more doable...
Cops? Longbow? Heck Use the Thugs set, theres little difference in real life between the police and gangs anyway

Longbow Flamethrower? Sounds like an arsonist to me!
The big Brute? Swap with the Praetorian Sargeant.

While were at it, the praetorian police use a lot of power weapons... as do Bots. Power gloves/gauntlets work just like the Bots arm mounted weapontry.

Clockwork! Theres 3 tiers of Clock work in Preatoria. Use them!

Recylce the whole powersets so there no game balacing (no mix and match), and the models are already in the game. I don't see why this couldn't be done inside a month, and be on test!