Drastic Revamp to Pool Powers and Epics

Ok, this is something I've heard kicked around, but I've never seen anyone post about it.
The devs have said that they'd like to revisit various power pools, so perhaps it's time they got a major overhaul.

There are certain restrictions that come with the AT system that make it hard to emulate many popular comic heroes. Even though powers and attacks similar to theirs are in the game, you can't always combine them on one character, or you can, but only after 40+ levels of playing them.


Examples:

Deadpool: He's got excellent hand to hand skills and swordsmanship, but he also uses guns. Any AT that uses Dual Blades or Dual Pistols is barred from having the other.

Black Canary: Again, primarily a hand to hand fighter, but she's got her trademark sonic attacks.

Iron Man: He's armored, has ranged attacks and some hand to hand.

Or even gadgeteer heroes like Batman, who are melee specialists, but also have a big bag of tricks to reach into.


I'm sure everyone else can think of more examples, of times they were inspired to make a character but had to compromise to work with our current system.

Right now, we lack that kind of flexibility. I feel we don't have to. We could transition to something that has more options, without throwing the AT system out completely or going to an absolutely "open form system" and all the problems that brings.

What I propose, is to revamp the Power Pool system to allow for some more flexibility in the characters we create.

This would start by creating more pools: Flame, Ice, Guns, Melee Weapons, Energy, Armor/Defense etc, that any AT can pick powers from and expanding on the existing pools (Fighting, Medicine, Presence etc).

These pools would contain 'clones' of basic attacks and abilities, that where needed, are weaker than their counterparts in the Primary and Secondary pools. Having the actual attack in your Primary or Secondary, however, would preclude you from getting its pool counterpart. The counterparts would be labeled "Lesser Fire Breath" (or some other means to indicate they're inferior to the Primary or Secondary version), for example, and always be unlocked at a higher level than their Primary or Secondary counterpart.

Also, this would mean retiring/reworking the current "Epic" and Patron pools, perhaps so they still contain the most potent abilities like Hibernate, Force of Nature, etc.

So, as to how this works to the example heroes I used before:

A Martial Arts/Super Reflex Scrapper wishing to emulate Black Canary could go to the Sonic Pool and take "Lesser Scream" at Level 6 and/or "Lesser Shout" at level 18.

A Dual Pistols Blaster could pick up some Dual Blade style attacks from the Melee Weapons pool, or a Dual Blade Scrapper could pick up a couple of Dual Pistol attacks from the Guns power pool and have a workable Deadpool.


Obviously, there are problems and conflicts in doing something like this that would have to be sorted out. It's a major undertaking, to be sure, but it's something I think should happen. We've had changes this big before, stuff some people were sure couldn't happen. ATs no longer being side specific. Power customization. The invention system. Just food for thought.

I've heard muttering on Live and on the beta server that people could get behind such a proposal, so how about it? What do people think of something like this?



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I would like something like this done. However, I think that it would involve more fundamental changes to some of the ATs in terms of their modifiers. For instance, Scrapper Range Attack Mods are very low, but most of their ranged attacks do good damage because they don't use those modifiers, they use the Scrapper Melee modifiers, which are higher. If they were to get access to some ranged attack from power pools, these Scrapper Ranged Attack Mods might need to be changed so that these powers actually did damage.

The other problem I've seen pointed out in the past about stuff like this is that you risk giving ATs more of what they already have and/or giving them access to powers they weren't supposed to be able to have.

What do I mean by that? I mean giving Blasters the ability to be able to take a lot of damage just from primary/secondary/pool powers. Or the ability to have significantly more ranged AoEs, for instance. It makes it tougher to balance the ATs because of all of the additional powers that they could take from these new pools.



So, would I like to see this. Yes. Definitely yes. I just wonder how much work it would actually create. But I think it would be worth it.


Edit -> But Iron Man can be replicated by Peacebringers and Warshades in human form. Some Hand to Hand, some ranged, and armors.

So in, simplest terms, any character could access slightly dumbed-down versions of the first 4-5 powers of another powerset outside their normal milieu? So a Fire blaster could dabble in Invulnerability, or a Regen Brute could take some low level Rad Emission powers.

At first blush, it seems pretty cool, so long as you can only access ONE additional powerset, a powerset your AT could not normally access (no stacking Invulnerability with Super Reflexes, for instance) and perhaps you couldn't even start dabbling until you hit a certian level, such as how the epic powersets work.

Sounds interesting, but it also sounds like there's the potential for some game-breaking combos in there.

I like your idea Johnny B. I've wished for the same thing for a long time.

I could see something like this incorporated into more Epic Power pools giving greater options then currently exist. (I would think it would make it easier to balance then straight pool powers.) But hey, the more options the merrier we'll all be.

I might just re-roll BB if we get this. I'm currently using fire manipulation so I can have a sword, so, yeah.
/SIGNED

I've always wanted more options!


Like, for instance, why can't there be pools with a power that doesn't attack/do damage?

Like, in the "ice" power pool, you could have "ice wall"...it'd create a wall of thick ice preventing enemies from following you or others. Maybe have it have x amount of HP so that the mobs can attack it/blow it up before moving after you (or just have it on a timer that it melts after x seconds).


Little things like that, that sure it wouldn't be "teh uber" but it might just be "fun" for some

I like this idea a lot.

I think the best way to do it would be to lower the entry level for epic power pools again, and to add more epic power pools to cover the concept bases.

Eg add Sonic Mastery as a clone of Blaze Mastery for Melee-ers - a couple of single target attacks, Screech, Howl and a low damage Sirens Song, with maybe -7% res debuff at most per attack. Now you can have your Black Canary.

The pros to this approach:

You're only picking up one "tertiary" powerset, making balancing easier.
You're restricting conflicts between primary secondaries and tertiaries, eg Blasters, Corrs and Defenders dont get the Sonic Mastery above.

You're not picking up a tertiary pool and an epic power set, eg we dont need to consider Blasters picking the Lesser Invulnerability pool AND an epic shield.

The question is, which level to open these pools?
24 seems a good choice, you dont unlock anything else then and players are still picking through their primary and secondary. Let the Tier 2 and 3 unlock at 30 and 35 maybe?

The patron arcs present a problem still. But add enough epics (not patrons) that people dont have to go redside to get Scorpion Shield, or villains dont need to do an arc to get the powersets they wnat unless they want to.

Yeah, 10-12 is probably not bad. I know that pretty much anyone can get to 20 in an evening now via Death from Below, but some characters will still take a week or more to get there.

It used to be that if you made a speedster (which is often a defining attribute of a character) you had to wait till 14 to get the key power, now its level 4.

Are there any primaries or secondaries where the defining ability doesn't really kick in until the 20s? I can't really think of any. Some late bloomer sets like Kinetics or Trick Arrow have the best powers later on, but with both you're doing Kinetic or Trick Arrow-y things right from level 1.

OK, Im sold on unlocking Tier 1 epics at level 12. That way a melee-er can at least throw fire or sonic scream, even if its not hugely effective and just tags runners. Maybe put later Tiers in the 20s?

I'd be wary of giving access to epics straightaway, like letting a Blaster have Scorpion Shield/Ice Armour as their first pick.
Black Canary could easily go a couple of issues of Birds of Prey without screaming, that's what level 12 unlock would represent.
In the context of the JLA, she may rely on her scream more and be a comparatively less powerful fighter, so make her a Sonic/Energy Blaster and she's screaming and punching from day 1, but more vulnerable to the sort of threats the JLA face and less likely to stand toe to toe?


Either way, this is nitpicking about the first couple of hours of a characters career while agreeing on what happens in the next 50 hours.
Wider range of epics, and earlier unlocks would be very cool.

Because the devs' main goal with this game is to allow players to make exact replicas of famous superheroes...

I'm not sure what you're asking.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leo_G That said, do you think you can clarify what it is I'm reading here? Are you A.)suggesting to revamp the whole system just to get more options sooner? B.)Or more 'signature' abilities that'd make one MA/SR scrapper unique from another MA/SR scrapper?

Both.


I ask myself two questions:

1. We allow a Blaster to get Temporary Invulnerability at level 41, and allow a Tanker to get Fire Blast also at 41. Would it really break the game if they didn't have to wait so long?

After all, we allow Blasters and Tankers temp powers that do almost the same things as those two powers mechanically/balance speaking, at lower levels than 41, and the powers team is fine with that. So what warrants making players wait until the late 30's and 40's to get those powers?


2. If we allow a Scrapper to get Fire Ball at all, why not Bullet Rain? Or any other equal or inferior Targeted AoE of any conceptual flavor a player could want?


It's the same issues as when people with a "speedster" concept for a character had to wait 14 levels just to be speedy, and why we just had to have a set with two swords when we already had a number of bladed weapons sets.


It's about allowing players to reasonably realize their concepts better than they can now and without waiting 40 levels. If your concept is a sword swinging detective with nascent pyrokinetic abilities, why should you have to wait 35 levels just to get Fire Blast when there may not even be any real balance reasons why you can't have a ranged attack in your teen levels? I suspect there aren't because we're allowed all kinds ranged attacks even earlier. Dig?

Does this answer your question? Because I'm not sure I understand it.



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the basic answer to your question is that it is game breaking

controllers getting aoe attacks that benefit from containment is game breaking. Various other powers are game breaking. At higher levels, everyone is over powered. That is the result of epic pools and IOs.

You don't see teams at level 20 doing +3/x8 (or very rarely) but in the 40's teams are usually pushing the highest levels of difficult and they are not very difficult

so what you are really asking is, if it is okay to make characters overpowered at level 40, why not sooner?

you list thematic reasons - superheroes with mixed range and melee. But in the game they don't mix very well. If you have mostly melee attacks, having several ranged attacks doesn't do anything for you, and vice versa.

scrappers don't want a ranged attack, they want a big AoE - ranged or not.

As for melee attacks - you can already get air superiority, punch, kick, and a few others from power pools. If you want them for thematic reasons - they are there. Few take them, because they are only useful for thematic reasons.

Now if you want more varied AT's - sets with defense powersets and ranged powersets type of thing - then you should look at SoA's. A crab has team buffs, massive aoe, defenses, and mezz defense. If that is not game breaking then you should be able to have an AT that has blaster ranged attacks and scrapper defenses.

A revamp like that would make every player respec every character they have that is level 35+. I have 33 lvl 50 characters, 7 or 8 of which have alternate builds. It's pretty huge... Which is probably why you used the word "drastic."

I always wanted devs to just make a set of Praetorian PP's. Heroes/villains would go to Praetoria, do some missions to unlock 4 or 5 new sets. It would breath a little bit of life into Going Rogue which never really had any popularity and is pretty much dead. After figuring out the new sets, we can pick and choose which characters need to do the Praet missions and respec them then. I personally want to see a new pool with a damage aura.

In principle I'd like this. I'd rather have this and wait as much as 9 months or a year for more incarnate progression.

In practice, I think this would be very very hard to balance in those 9 months.

First of all, I would recommend abandoning the argument that something is fine if you cannot see it being "game-breaking." Its the kiss of death. Believe me or don't.

Second, I suggested something similar for the architect: make pools of ranged attacks, melee attacks, and very simple defenses so that custom critters could be customized, and there was some resistance to the idea on a number of grounds. It would be easier to do this for custom critters than actual players, so that would suggest it would be very difficult to get this level of effort off the ground. It might increase the likelihood of happening if the idea could be downscaled to something small, that had within it the ability to be scaled up outward over time.

In principle, it could be done, it might even be a good idea if it was done, but I think you're underestimating the balance significant issues that crop up, at least as the devs see balance. And how they see it is the only thing that matters to a suggestion. In particular, in a game with level advancement and archetypes, it is not automatically true that if they give it to you at 41, its ok to have at 21, and just because a different powerset gets it doesn't mean its ok for all of them to do so. That would be breaking rules all over the place, and even if you could get Synapse to agree, there's no way you'd get everyone involved with powers simultaneously to agree to that stipulation. Too many people would have to simultaneously sign off on that sort of idea to make it viable. You can break the design rules occasionally, but doing so on a grand scale takes an act of god. Even Positron can't unilaterally do that given the current way Paragon works.

Just add more Epic Pools, that way the powers can be balanced with each AT in mind. With the Black Canary example, that would be a Scrapper with a Sonic Epic Pool.

A Power Pool revamp I'd like to see it simplifying them down to two tiers: the first three powers avaiable at level 4 (35 for Epic/Patron), once you take one of those the other two powers become available at level 14 (44 for Epic/Patron). This would be mean less taking powers you don't want to get powers you do- skip the filler, get to the fun stuff!

This would also mean the rest of the pools need a fifth power.