Sunday, September 9, 2012

Power House, Free Form and You!

Due to an unforeseen delay today, I don't have the time to begin recounting Day 2. But as an intermission, let's talk Power House (as I promised I would elaborate on it in the last entry.)The Power House is where heroes go to train up new powers and purchase talents, super stats, etc as they level up. But it's also much more than that.


You enter this odd looking structure as you would any mission door and are immediately greeted with swarms of people gathered around a central ring of trainers. Hope you've mastered using the Z key to interact with objects and NPCs, because you'll find it difficult to find and click on a trainer.


As you level up, you gain all sorts of ways to progress your character. Super Stats level up with you and boost.. well, whatever it is they boost. Strength lets you hit things harder, Ego lets you shoot things harder, Constitution lets you be hit harder, etc. Super Stats also add to your damage. Super Stats are also the second most boring thing to agonize over here. Talents would be the most boring, as they simply boost stats.


Specializations are based off your super stats (I think) and act like talents would in WoW. So, passive boosts according to whatever you put points into. Starting at 10, you earn a specialization point every level. These are more interesting, but ultimately just more numbers. Let's get to the meat of the power house: Powers and Advantages.

 
Power Armor
 
 
This is your power's menu. As an AT, you'll simply be told which power you're being given at any certain level. Relieves some stress, for sure, but you're more or less locked into a certain build. Every so often, you can choose between two powers. Yay. But that's the point of AT's: It's not as mind-numbingly difficult as a Free Form AT. Because, you see... if you're free form:

Elemental Trees. Notice the top left tab, and the five icons. These are powers from all icons.
 

 

That's one category of powers. Notice there are six tabs. Each tab has 3+ specific icons, such as Wind powers vs Fire Powers.



As another example, this the Martial Arts category, which has Dual Blade, Unarmed, Single Blade and Claw power types.

Holy Hell. Yes, you can pick and choose from the lot of these. Want a beam sword on your wind summoning guy? Go for it. Want your dark sorcerer to use a machine gun? Why not. Maybe your martial artist should use both fists and pistols. Of course he should. And you can do that here. Granted, sticking to your powerset unlocks more powers faster, but the freedom to choose is what really counts. This, right here, blows City out of the water. It's also a metric ton to take in. See all these people gathered here? They're trying to decide what's best to choose next. Insanity.

Thankfully, you're not locked into a power right after you take it, providing you don't leave the Power House. The power house has multiple floors that you can use to test your new powers. Stand on a laser pad and get blasted to test that new defense. Go shoot some test dummys to see how that new laser pistol or shoulder minigun looks. Maybe use the “danger room” (I can't remember the actual name) to re-create holographic groups appropriate for your level range and test the powers in an actual combat situation.


Unsatisfied? Go back to the main lobby and untrain for free. The Power House is an awesome concept. Once you're satisfied, just exit and everything will be locked into place. Should you decide that the shoulder minigun isn't cutting it in a couple levels, you can always come back and untrain for some ingame cash. This, though potentially expensive depending on how far you roll back, beats searching for hours for a Respec Trial group.

And that's the powerhouse, as well as a rough look at the Free Form character. I'll try to work in some of Day 2 tomorrow!

- @Epsicon

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