Powersets you wish they had put in.

[0nehanklap]

Self-Duplication set for Masterminds.

But the third I'd wanted was a self-duplication MM set.  It was one of those superpowers you see a lot in comics, which seemed like it would be a lot of fun to play with.  Make your pets copy your appearance but just fight with some simple martial arts/street fighting attacks or guns or whatever.  A Gang War style huge mob of duplicates would have been great, too.  But sadly I don't think the system could handle that kind of custom appearance stuff for MM minions, so it was pretty likely never even on the table as an option for them to add.

This, except the duplicates have the same powers as the Player, minus duplication, and at descending levels of power (boss/Lt/Minion).

Here's an idea for an EPIC AT:  One of my favorites from PnP days which could be implemented with current tech, would be a Polymorphing, or Xenomorph AT, which in addition to basic off/def powers, (maybe something like Terminator-3 limb transformations/or a Jekyl/Hyde type) at mid & higher levels, can actually transmorph into a completely different character, ie. 'mimic' any AT.  Upon selecting this power, you'd re-enter the character creator and redesign from scratch the alternate character as any AT/Build, then activate the power to switch to that Form at will (with some restrictions; ie recharge/interrupt/damage levels/etc.).  Add more transforms with levels.

[Triplash]

These aren't regular powersets, but they're similar... I always wanted to see a set of origin-themed epic archetypes. I had been developing notes for a while pre-shutdown and was going to suggest it. I definitely didn't have everything figured out, but it was coming along well. My goal with them was to provide different playstyles to freshen things up for the more experienced players, and to fill in a few AT gaps that were occasionally requested, like Defense/Control or Defense/Ranged, or melee-based Buff/Debuff. And of course, to make a really thematic representation of each origin. I would've loved to see something like these get put in.

Spoiler for Origin ATs:

Magic: The Wizard
A standard magic-user like you'd see in a D&D game.

The primary powerset is ranged damage, like an aoe fireball, a chaining lightning bolt, a cone of acid spray. The secondary powerset is a mix of controls like "blinding rage" (confuse plus a damage buff) and "shunting aura" (pbaoe that teleports foes away if they get into melee range), and a few debuffs like poison clouds and "chaos storm" (taoe that hits each foe with a random choice from its list of debuffs). Maybe an Ooze pet.

It would've also featured several "Schools of Magic" power choices. There'd be, say, eight of them and throughout leveling you could pick up to three. Whichever ones you picked would amplify the effects of certain other abilities, so you could diversify for utility or you could specialize and become more potent in a few areas. "Elemental Magic" would increase the damage and secondary effects of your element-based powers; for example, an ice-based immobilize patch would upgrade to hold, or a single-target fire ball would upgrade to an aoe. "Dark Magic" would increase your negative damage, life-draining and necromancy powers; for example, your Raise Undead power would now summon a death knight instead of a minor zombie. "Wild Magic" would add extra damage or debuffs of random types to certain enemy-targeting powers, and would add healing or absorb points or random buffs to certain self- and ally-targeting powers. And so on.


Technology: The Battlesuit
This is your typical set of powered armor, something that you'd see in a heavy-sci-fi RPG.

Its primary powerset would be defense, partly through thick metal armor (toggles) and partly through countermeasures systems that prevented things like debuffs or certain damage types (clicks). Its secondary powerset would be split between mid-level ranged attacks like a laser cannon mounted on the forearm or a cluster of shoulder rockets, and no-damage utility powers like a stun wave or gas cannisters.

It would also feature a charge mechanic, whereby you could overclock the suit's reactor and have it produce more power than it needed. At increasing stages that power could be diverted into various systems temporarily, to either reinforce armor integrity, boost weapon damage, or reduce recharge time. But if left unchecked, the suit risked overheating and causing the power to erupt violently, damaging anyone caught in the blast and shutting the suit down temporarily.


Natural: The Gunblade
This is the character who wades into battle with a blade in one hand and a gun in the other. They are not a greathammer of destruction, but rather a graceful tornado of deadly precision.

It had often been suggested that this couldn't be done properly within the game, but I'd always believed that was because of technical limitations in trying to combine it with other powersets. My idea was to make the gun one powerset, and the blade the other powerset. The weapons would be unique to that AT, "a gun and a blade" as opposed to "one gun" and "one blade", and the animations would be unique as well, incorporating both weapons into every power, even though only one of the two would get "used" in any given power. It would have a little melee defense mixed in with the blade powerset, and a little ranged/aoe defense mixed in with the gun powerset.

It was specifically intended to not be as strong in either damage type as an AT dedicated to that type, but rather to be a happy medium. In fact it deliberately had a weak base damage for the blade's melee attacks, because it was meant to deliver a series of debuffs that got stronger with each hit, simulating weakening the target. Plus after a certain level it would have forced the player to choose one path or the other, similar to the Arachnos Soldiers. Specialize in their gun training with some supplemental blade support, or focus on their blade training with some supplemental gun support.


Mutation: The Powerhouse
The Powerhouse takes ally support to the front lines. They wade into battle, both weakening their foes and empowering their allies, and they fuel this ability by draining the life essence from every enemy they touch.

The primary powerset contains a mix of buffs, debuffs, controls, and heals. The catch is that they are all melee-range powers, so the character has to be face-to-face with a foe to control or debuff, and face-to-face with a friend to heal or buff. The effects are fairly strong to make up for that, but mostly the trade-off is in diversity. The secondary powerset contains a mix of low to moderate melee damage attacks (about that of a Tanker) and defensive abilities (just under that of a Scrapper).

With each attack or debuff/control it lands on a foe, it Siphons a little bit of Essence from the target and stores it within itself. It can then decide to either use that Essence to empower its abilities, or save it up and get a much bigger boost at a more crucial time.


Science: The Scientist
This character would carry a selection of devices like serum syringes, spray cannisters, and emitter arrays, and would walk one of two different paths. Field Scientists use the battlefield to test their latest inventions, while Mad Scientists volunteer to be their own test subjects and end up turning everything around them into a battlefield.

One path would be Field Science primary / Prototypes secondary, and would focus on crowd control and ally buffs. The other path would be Mad Science primary / Experiments secondary, and would focus on melee attacks and personal buffs. Both paths would have a high recharge rate and low endurance cost, meaning the abilities could be used very often. However each time one of these abilities is used it builds up and has a chance to react very, very badly.

Ally-targeting Field Science / Prototype powers used too frequently might inadvertently cause the targeted allies to suffer debuffs or, if applied extremely often, even hold, confuse, or DoT effects. Self-targeting Mad Science / Experiment powers used too frequently cause the character to build Frenzy, until it enters a Combat Craze. This has several effects; first, their taunt aura increases in range and becomes more potent, and their Threat level increases. Second, their attack radius widens; single target attacks turn into narrow cones, narrow cones widen, and wide cones become pbaoes. Third, while Crazed any damage and side effects will affect allies just as strongly, and the Mad Scientist suffers a form of Confusion where they can target both allies and enemies alike (forcing the player to pay attention to who they're targeting). Which goes to show, it can be dangerous just to be around a Mad Scientist.

[MaidMercury]

I would have liked a 'Boomerang'.

I think there should be a Boss that could TP you back if you were fleeing.
Perhaps try to adjust the roll ability according to level. Similar to the Pylons in Vanguard - if you got within range, you'd risk getting zapped. Or Hamidon,where it could follow you with it's energy beams until you got far enough away.

[therain93]

I would have liked a 'Boomerang'.

Disney probably would sue for copyright infringement if fish were an optional customization.  "I throw them away and they come back to me!"  ( ' :

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=images4.wikia.nocookie.net%2F__cb20100721203148%2Fmuppet%2Fimages%2Fthumb%2F6%2F69%2FLewZealand_and_Fish.jpg%2F300px-LewZealand_and_Fish.jpg

[therain93]

I always wanted a Shotgun set, personally. But whenever it got suggested on the forums people said it was too close to Assault Rifle. Yet we had no fewer than three sword sets, four if you count titan weapons.

Agreed.  CO did something similar with the Munitions set that lumped a whole bunch of different weapons in together.  It still would be nice to have different powers attached to different weapons.

[Blondeshell]

Disney probably would sue for copyright infringement if fish were an optional customization.  "I throw them away and they come back to me!"  ( ' :

Carp Melee.

[TimtheEnchanter]

Disney probably would sue for copyright infringement if fish were an optional customization.  "I throw them away and they come back to me!"  ( ' :

That must be why Mako ground them up in his mouth before attacking with them.

[TimtheEnchanter]

Xenomorph

You lost me now. All I think about now is a Mastermind with Xenomorph pets.  8)

Game over, man!

[therain93]

Lew Zealand was clearly a ranged fighter -- I see no potential infringement issues with carp melee ( ' ;

[Kistulot]

We needed "Martial Arts Blast"

Those of you who watch Stuart Ashen know why.

[eabrace]

Lew Zealand was clearly a ranged fighter -- I see no potential infringement issues with carp melee ( ' ;

Yeah, Lew would have clearly been Carp Blast.

[Memorandum]

1st: A whip set, I'm thinking here on something like Indiana Jones Movies. It could have been connected with moving actions too, like throwing your whip onto building pieces and jump and so on.

2nd: As masterminds were in the end also available for the good side I would have liked to see:
a. Elemental Mastermind. I know we had elemental forces with a summon at the end, but this is not what I liked to see. A real elemental mastermind summoner where his elementals were fighting for him.
b. An Angel Mastermind. Yeah, why not. That set could have been kicked out a lot of things with special powers anyway (maybe the mastermind would be a real big healer in base and his angels would be a buff type for group play with Archangles for fight). I mean a real complete buff type support MM was missing anyway (I know, usually you used the 3th class skills for support like more power, aim and so on but this is not what I'm talking about).
c. As already mentioned: A MM set where you could set up yourself how your pets will look like in combination with existing skill sets. Would work out too, as you could have been limited how many skills a pet could use/assigned to.

3th: A power consuming set was already announced but never went online. Actually that natural force set was nice in the end too (I had luck to play it, because I bought immediately).

Edit: Oh man just watched some screens on my chars. I'm now really really sad...  :gonk: I loved so much creating outfits in connection with character story and powers... esp. the free choose of powers was one of the biggest benefits of CoH. Man now I'm down again. I will never understand, why that game was shut down.

[TimtheEnchanter]

1st: A whip set, I'm thinking here on something like Indiana Jones Movies. It could have been connected with moving actions too, like throwing your whip onto building pieces and jump and so on.

The 'energy whip' that some of the NPC's used was one of the coolest freaking things I ever saw in the game. I so wanted to see that become a powerset.

[houtex]

Web/rope/grapple/? slinging type swinging/capturing powers.  Not quite Spiderman, not quite Batman, but some of each.  Maybe even an Ahn Woon.  Yeah.  And the ability to shoot a line at a building and reel/swing on it. 

Sweetness would be that.  I always wanted that.

[srmalloy]

The 'energy whip' that some of the NPC's used was one of the coolest freaking things I ever saw in the game. I so wanted to see that become a powerset.

You got the whip attacks in the Demon Summoning powerset for Masterminds, but that was only a couple of attacks; there was never a complete powerset built around the whip.

[Bamlicious]

Would it have been too OP to have been able to step outside the melee/ranged/control/support frameworks and allow us to perhaps freely match sets from all of the powers, or a limited core? I just always wondered about the impact on the game if we were able to do as such. What would a ranged/ranged toon look like, and what would their def look like vs a toon that say was more traditional. What about ranged fire and fire armor together? or ice? The potential combos therein with their own pluses and minuses seem pretty vast.  Perhaps stretching it further, make a "core" set of the same abilities, that when matched with "similar" ones, conferred class-specific bonuses instead.  I could have made that fire ranged/fire armor toon, but the fire melee/ fire armor toon would have had better def? Something in that context could have been amazing, in my opinion. 

Sorry if this is off topic, I miss my Magic Hateball....

[emperorsteele]

Bam: IIRC, they initially tried that, but some people were becoming tank-mages and complained the game was too easy, while others totally gimped themselves by taking all healing powers or something ridiculous like that, then complained the game was too hard. That idea didn't make it out of the alpha pre-tests.

Something I would have liked to have seen along the lines you suggested would have been an "Elemental" AT: You pick a flavor (Fire, ice, electric, etc) and you get access to most of the powers from those sets (Fire blast, fire melee, fire armor, fire control, fire buff/debuff). The tradeoff being that it would be hard to min/max that (Do I take a hold, a debuff, an armor or an attack? dammit I can't decide!), also maybe don't let "Elementals" have T9 abilities.

Ah well...

[Ultrarocket]

I was interested in Psionic weaponry when they mentioned it a while back.

[Thunder Glove]

Bam: IIRC, they initially tried that, but some people were becoming tank-mages and complained the game was too easy, while others totally gimped themselves by taking all healing powers or something ridiculous like that, then complained the game was too hard. That idea didn't make it out of the alpha pre-tests.

While I still don't like the idea of a completely freeform character system (I tried it in CO, found my characters were themeless mishmashes because all the powers I needed to survive were in Frameworks other than the one I wanted to focus on), I don't think the spectre of tank-mages would have been a problem for CoH - especially given that the Epic Archetypes already fell into that category, and weren't considered overpowered in the least.

A more general Blast/Defense or Assault/Defense AT would probably have worked out fine, as long as the numbers were right.

[General Idiot]

Personally I don't think you can judge the concept of a freeform system in general by CO's implementation of it. CO's version is flawed in two ways. It made all the powers too samey, aside from a few exceptions most of their powers are the same thing reskinned. And it has no recharge on most powers. The two combined mean gameplay boils down to 'activate buffs, spam this one power if you're against one guy and this one power if you're against a group'. Tanking just means you take the taunt advantage on that one power and go right on spamming, and support means you spam something on teammates instead.

You're sort of right though, a completely and totally freeform system leads to that by design, especially if you aim for balance because the only way to balance such a system IS to make everything the same. If you instead had a system where you create CoH style powers, plus an overall archetype selection to define what a character is best at without restricting power selection, I still think a more freeform system could work.

You'd have to make respecs cheap or easy to get though, because the more open you make it the easier it is to inadvertently make something that just isn't going to be good enough. Though, at the same time there were people in CoH who played petless masterminds and attackless defenders so there's a market out there for those kinds of mechanically inferior concept characters, especially in a team focused game where being unable to solo isn't a problem. Provide some premade 'powersets' and suggested builds (See also: Decks in Secret World) to make it more friendly to newbies and you'd be fine, I think.

Actually speaking of Secret World, there's an example of freeform done as close to right as I've seen it. A single character can in time possess literally every ability in the game, but you're limited to seven active and seven passive powers in use at any one time. Active powers are further limited by only being usable with the correct weapon equipped, and you can equip only two of the nine weapons in the game at once. Each weapon has a defined role so your character's role in a fight becomes dictated by which two weapons you have. Personally I would divorce role from weapons, but I'm not sure how you'd do that in their existing system. Probably the sort of thing you'd have to redesign from the ground up for. Most likely have a selectable role, and give abilities effects based on what role you have selected.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. I'll stop derailing now.