Thursday, September 17, 2009

Issue 16: Power Spectrum

Powers Customization:

Hundreds of powers have been updated to allow new color selections and customization. Players can now pick new Themes for each powerset, adjusting colors, appearance, and even animations for some sets.

Key Features:
  • Thousands of Tintable particle and geometry effects for powers, such as Energy Blasts and Stone Mallet colors.
  • Customizable Primary and Secondary colors for powersets, with color choices themed to match the selected powerset.
  • Powerset Themes selectable for a complete set, or individual powers.
  • Powerset Themes selectable at character creation, as well as in the tailor screens.
  • Independant Theme selection for each character costume.

New Theme selections:
New Themes of Spines and Thorny Assault available, including themes of Thorns, Metal Spines, Crystal Spines, and Slate Spines. New Animation Themes for Super Strength and Martial Arts.Huge variety of customizable powersets, including Cold Domination, Dark Armor, Dark Blast, Dark Melee, Dark Miasma, Devices, Earth Control, Earth Melee, Electric Armor, Electric Assault, Electric Blast, Electric Melee, Electricity Manipulation, Empathy, Energy Assault, Energy Aura, Energy Blast, Energy Manipulation, Energy Melee, Fiery Aura, Fire Assault, Fire Blast, Fire Control, Fire Manipulation, Fire Melee, Force Field, Gravity Control, Ice Armor, Ice Assault, Ice Blast, Ice Control, Ice Manipulation, Ice Melee, Illusion, Invulnerability, Kinetics, Mental Manipulation, Mind Control, Necromancy, Plant Control, Psionic Assault, Psychic Blast, Radiation Blast, Radiation Emission, Regeneration, Sonic Resonance, Sonic Blast, Spines, Stone Armor, Storm Summoning, Super Reflexes, Thermal Radiation, Thorny Assault, Traps, and Willpower.
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New Character Creator:

* The Character creator and Tailor screen have been updated to be easier to use and even preview the animation and color choices for powers!

Key features:

  • Tabbed Character Creator: Jump between Archetype, Power Sets, Costumes, and Character ID in any order without losing progress.
  • New Powers Customization screen, for adjusting powers and previewing animations.
  • Select colors and themes for each individual power, or apply it to the entire power set!
  • Preview live animations of all powers, showing the selected Theme and color choices.
  • Save and Load Theme settings for each powerset, saving colors and selections for all powers.

Costume slots: Your active costume slot is stored when you log off will be the costume slot used when you log back in. It will also display that costume in the character selection screen. _______________________________________________

Powerset Proliferation:
More power sets are now in the hands of Archetypes who couldn’t use them previously!

  • Archetype - Blasters * Radiation Blast
  • Archetype - Brutes * Claws
  • Archetype - Controllers * Cold Domination
  • Archetype - Corruptors * Archery * Trick Arrow
  • Archetype - Defenders * Assault Rifle * Traps
  • Archetype - Dominators * Earth Assault
  • Archetype -Masterminds * Thermal Radiation
  • Archetype -Scrappers * Electric Melee * Electric Armor
  • Archetype -Tankers * Electric Melee * Electric Armor
  • Archetype -Stalkers * Broadsword

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Enhanced Difficulty Options:
The old notoriety system has been removed and replaced with a new difficulty system of independent settings. You can now fine-tune the difficulty levels of the missions you play by telling the game exactly how you want to be treated:

* Choose to fight monsters between a -1 to +4 level difference from the player's level.
* Choose to set your personal team size (1-8).
* Choose if you want bosses to scale down to Lieutenants when soloing or not
* Choose to have AVs scale down to EBs.

The difficulty settings of the mission owner dictate how the mission is handled. Actual team size overrides any difficulty setting, so you will always get Arch-Villains if the team has 6 or more members. The difficulty setting is per task, so personal team member sizes do not add together. You can change your difficulty settings at any Hero Corp.’s Representative in Paragon City or Fateweaver in the Rogue Isles.

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Sidekicking Changes: Super-Sidekicking! One player can now sidekick or exemplar the whole team, everyone can always play together!

  • Each player in the group's level is set to the level of the owner of the active team task. If no team task is selected, everyone in the group's level will be set to the level of the team leader.
  • When the team level changes, players will be notified via a dialog and have the option to quit the team or immediately accept. The dialog will time out after 30 seconds at which point acceptance is implied.
  • While in the pending state, players cannot receive rewards and any critters they damage will be worth no experience.
  • Players can choose to auto-accept team level changes 0 to 50 levels above or below their current level.
  • Exemplars will now earn XP and a level capped person will get XP converted into influence like exemplars used to.
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New Badges: Last issue we announced our future plans and design direction for new badges. Here’s a list of the new badges that can be obtained in Issue 16:

  • Master of Reichsman Strike Force
  • Master of Reichsman Task Force
  • Master of Imperious Task Force
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Epic/Patron Powers Pools:

The balance between the Epic/Patron power pools has been revisited. Now all Epic power pools have 5 powers to choose from.

  • Force Mastery (Blaster) Existing Powers * Personal Force Field * Repulsion Field * Temporary Invulnerability * Force of Nature New Powers * Repulsion Bomb - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Moderate Damage(Smash/Energy), Foe Knockdown
  • Flame Mastery (Blaster) Existing Powers * Bonfire * Char * Fire Shield * Rise of the Phoenix New Powers * Melt Armor - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe -Res, -Def
  • Fire Mastery (Controller) Existing Powers * Fire Blast * Fire Ball * Fire Shield * Consume New Powers * Rise of the phoenix - Self Rez, Special
  • Psionic Mastery (Controller) Existing Powers * Mental Blast * Indomitable Will * Mind Over Body * Psionic Tornado New Powers * World of Confusion - PBAoE, Minor DoT(Psionic), Foe Confuse
  • Dark Mastery (Defender) Existing Powers * Oppressive Gloom * Dark Consumption * Dark Embrace * Soul Drain New Powers * Soul Transfer - Self Rez, Special
  • Power Mastery (Defender) Existing Powers * Conserve Power * Power Build Up * Temp Invulnerability * Total Focus New Powers * Force of Nature - +Res(All but Psionics)
  • Blaze Mastery (Scrapper) NEW Existing Powers * None New Powers * Ring of Fire - Ranged, Moderate DoT(Fire), Foe Immobilize * Char - Ranged, Minor DoT(Fire), Foe Hold * Fire Blast - Ranged, Moderate DMG(Fire) * Melt Armor - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe -Res, -DEF * Fire Ball - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Moderate DMG(Fire/Smash)
  • Body Mastery (Scrapper) Existing Powers * Conserve Power * Focused Accuracy * Laser Beam Eyes * Energy Torrent New Powers * Physical Perfection - Auto, +Regen, +Recovery (50% of the values offered by Stamina and Health)
  • Darkness Mastery (Scrapper) Existing Powers * Torrent * Petrifying Gaze * Dark Blast * Tenebrous Tentacles New Powers * Nightfall - Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Negative), Foe –To Hit.
  • Energy Mastery (Tanker) Existing Powers * Conserve Power * Focused Accuracy * Laser Beam Eyes * Energy Torrent New Powers * Physical Perfection - Auto, +Regen, +Recovery (50% of the values offered by Stamina and Health.
  • Soul Mastery (VEAT) Existing Powers * Gloom * Soul Tentacles * Darkest Night * Dark Obliteration * Summon Widow New Powers * Darkest Night - Toggle: Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe -DMG -To Hit
  • Leviathan Mastery (VEAT) Existing Powers * Spirit Shark * School of Sharks * Bile Spray * Summon Guardian New Powers * Arctic Breath - Ranged (Cone), Minor DoT(Cold), Foe -Speed, -Recharge, -DEF -Res, knock down
  • Mace Mastery (VEAT) Existing Powers * Mace Blast * Web Envelop * Disruptor Blast * Summon Blaster New Powers * Shatter Armor – Melee, Superior DMG(Smash), Foe –Res
  • Mu Mastery (VEAT) Existing Powers * Mu Lightning * Electrifying Fences * Ball Lightning * Summon Striker New Powers * Static Discharge - Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Energy), -END Mu Mastery (Brute) Existing Powers * Mu Lightning * Electrifying Fences * Ball Lightning * Summon Striker New Powers * Static Discharge - Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Energy), -END
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Mission Architect:
Check out the improvements made to the Mission Architect:
Custom Critter XP Scaling
  • Custom Critters with Custom powers now reward XP proportional to the number of powers added to the critter.
  • Critters with no powers are allowed, but they are worth no XP.
  • Standard and hard critters are worth less than extreme critters.
Mission Browser Improvements
  • Author Hyperlink: Author names are now hyperlinked and will underline on mouseover. Clicking on the name of the author in the Mission Browser will do a search for all the other arcs that author has also published. Clicking it will search for arcs by that author only
Mission Creation Improvements
  • Runaway Boss Dialog: The boss now has dialog when he runs away.
  • Health Dialog on Allies: Allies and Escorts can be set to say things as they lose health.
  • Betrayal Options: Allies and Escorts can now be set to betray on any normal objective. They can also say something when they betray.
  • Drag & Drop Mission Goals: Goals in Architect missions can now be dragged and dropped to change their order.
  • Objective Counts: A count is listed on each detail creation button of the number of details that can still be placed.
Custom Villain Groups
  • If a player has all three basic critter types in their CVG, they will receive full rewards for the mission. If one critter type is missing they will receive 50% rewards. If two critter types are missing they will receive 25% rewards, and if none of the core critter types are in the CVG, there are no rewards. o This applies only to critters auto-spawned by the mission, not specific bosses called for by objectives XP Curve Adjustment
To go along with our new changes to sidekicking and exemplaring, we've made some adjustments to the experience awarded from minions, lieutenants and bosses in the level 5 to 24 range. In short these enemies are on average receiving a 20% experience and influence increase. This will slightly speed up the pace at which heroes and villains advance through the 5 to 24 range

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