Of Lore and Sidekicks: Fantastical Speculation

I've been thinking a lot about the coming Incarnate Lore Slot.

My Fears: A part of me fears it is going to be executed pretty much as was leaked back during GoRo closed beta (but leaked briefly to the open test server)--essentially a praetorian faction based pet that gets modified along the lines of the six Lore enhancements already found in game. (i.e. get your very own Praetorian Clockwork pet and buff it via your incarnate slot.) Sadly, a Shivan by any other name...

My Hopes: I'm hoping that this system has been seriously rethought by the current super sekrit endgame team. IMO, all our incarnate powers should be highly customizable when they impact our character in any way that is visible. This is THE penultimate stage of development for our MOST POWERFUL characters, right? IMO, going from highly individualized and customized powers to uber endgame powers that have at best a half dozen cookie cutter appearances feels like a step backwards.

Pet Customization: I have deep hopes that the Lore pet (from here on out to be called a Sidekick (not to be confused with SSK, but more in line with the classic comic book concept of a sidekick)) will be fully customizable in appearance, power appearance and even movement style.

I'd be fine if their powers all did the same damage type if need be for balance. But I'd love to be able to choose whether it looked like my sidekick was wielding fire or ice or conventional weapons. I'd love to be able to choose the body type and size of my sidekick, taking full advantage of our extensive costume creator to dress him/her/it in a fitting manner that complements my character's look and concept. (Giant companion protector robot, girl-wonder, pouncing cat boy, a shadow of the main character, etc.)

Though, like MM pets any sidekick should have some version of super jump running that allows them to always keep up, one more pull down should be added to the character creator allowing us to declare the movement style our sidekick will use: standard, hover, ninja-run (if you have the martial arts pack), or beastly run (if as some of us are hoping that comes with the next booster).

Lastly, we should be able to name our sidekick just as any MM pet can be named. And maybe be able to provide them with a brief bio description.

Additionally, all this tech would likely also then permit some significant degree of MM pet customization and hopefully both could be released at the same time or near the same time.

Unlocking the Sidekick: Though our sidekick may become a force to be reckoned with once we slot third and fourth tier Lore enhancements, the sidekick itself IMO should be unlocked via an arc available at level 40. Over the last 10 levels of advancement, the duration would increase by one minute and the cool down for calling the sidekick would halve each level. So perhaps at level 40, you can call your new side kick once every 24 hours for 1 minute. At 41, once every 12 hours for 2 minutes, etc. Unlocking the Lore slot would basically perma your sidekick. And the Lore enhancements would then buff it according to the information that has already leaked.

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So, much like Moo's thread outlining his wild and crazy fantasies for the animal booster pack, the above are mine in rough for how the Lore slot would ideally work into the game. Sadly, my more realistic expectations are much lower. But I really am not that excited about another cookie cutter recycled mob pet for this endgame power.

My hopes: We will have some options for this pet. Thematically tying any Incarnate slot to Praetoria is a bad idea. I realize it's the devs' new shiny and they're in love with it, but it's just the latest stop in our characters' journey, invalidating everything that came before by essentially saying "it's all about Praetoria now" is just bad. Even if we're mostly using our uber-awesome powers to fight the Praetorian threat, it's not Praetoria that gave them to us in the first place. The Well is here, on Primal Earth.

Now I don't expect full pet customization, but at least a few choices for each pet that have a purely cosmetic effect.

I'd also want MM-style pet controls.

My fears: We'll get to choose between four pets, and they'll be just as stupid as my Dark Servant.

I want the ability to actually control my non-henchmen just like henchman over anything else. I suppose costume customizability for pets comes after that in my list of pet wants. :P

The more customization options, the better. I would love to be able to design the look for my lore pet.

For me, I'd like to see the following options on apppearance...

• Match Primary - a themed pet matching Mastermind or Controller pets in appearance
• Match Alignment - same as the Backup Radio craftable temp
• Match Character - a doppelganger of your own self (not necessarily with your powers)
• Custom Character - complete custom appearance

In my opinion, any visible powers added to the game that do not afford a good degree of customization would be an oversight and mistake.

That is my opinion based on my personal preferences, tastes and enjoyments with playing this game.

An NPC pet power? Yeah, I'm not even thrilled with that idea, but if it does happen, I would absolutely love to see it include a full customization process.
I'm not sure that is something they'd want to do though... make "sidekicks" a full on part of the end game?
The whole concept seems to go against the notion of tailoring the journey per the ideas and concepts of the user.

However, staying within the mindset that it will happen (for the sake of this thread) I'd hope for just about everything that SilverAgeFan said, other than the unlocking and duration/recharge scaling. [That just seems a bit convoluted. Although, I understand the idea of slowly introducing the new character and progressively adding more and more face time]

To create, customize and name pets would be fabulous... for Master Minds first and/or alongside such a system as suggested here.

I, too, would just expect a selection of 4-6 NPC pets.
However, I truly hope that any visual powers for the incarnate system have power customization equal (or greater) to what we already have for Primary and Secondary Powers.

[And I am very much in favor of getting Power Pool and Epic Pools customizable before adding a single other thing to the game, hehe. Again, just my preferences]

If it was my idea:
Lore unlocks a pet/sidekick who's costume and name is modifiable.

With shards or whatever means we purchase slots that define their AT, primary, and efficiency at using his powers. Just like we can switch around Alpha slots, we could switch around its AT and power slots to best fit the situation.