LordSquigie

Something that has always seemed a little odd is that almost every mission involves one or more of the major factions. There are very few capers starring newcomers or small-time outsiders, like everyone's favorite 1 minion, 1 lt., 1 boss group, the Spetsnaz.

To add a little variety to the mix I propose creating several generic villain groups with no set backstory or idealology. The easiest way to go would be to make use of the Mastermind pets, modifying the costumes for contrast and mixing up the powers to balance across different level ranges.

The generic factions:

Robots - Standard bots, with possibly another lt. to break up the Protector Bot buffing. Addtional units would be mad scientist minions and lts., armed with laser guns and beakers full of variously chemicals. The Throw Beaker power would do minor aoe damage with a variety of random debuffs, set up like the Mystic Fortune power.

Thugs - Thugs don't really need much to be their own faction, though the addition of femele models would be nice. They probably wouldn't spawn at the upper levels.

Necrmancy - The undead horde, with accompanying necromancer lts. and bosses. Lots'a dark powers.

Ninja - EVerything's better with ninja. They could use a high-ranking ninja as a new boss.

Mercenaries - Good potential for variety by making rifle, smg and shotgun versions of the different ranks. An interesting feature would be adding leadership-type auras to the lts.' and bosses.

These generic groups would be first added to newspaper/police band mission, and maybe to some existing blueside contact missions as part of a revamp.

The are "A Path Into Darkness" from Colleen Nelson could use some sprucing up. The story is interesting, and provides some great backstory, but Nelson keeps suggesting you bring friends for the later missions, when the nastiest enemies to be fought are a few Dark Equinox Archons. Given that the arc involves a plot to flood the streets of Paragon with new warwolves, it could use an EB or two, and maybe a unique room for the end map.

I love the holiday events. The chalet, zombies, trick-or-treating, even Snaptooth( he's so wonderfully vulnerable to knockback ).

Y'know, the ski chalet is in the Shadow Shard. Wonder what Rularuu thinks of it?

Imagine, Observer snipers on the new Xtreme! ski course, periodic invasions to assassinate Father Time, a new GM to join the Winter Lord, and much more. It would be awesome.

I swapped my SS/WP brute's punches to the new animations, setting the colors to closely match the original effects. Rage I made a dark red, which looks pretty nice with the yellow willpower glows.

Penny Jenny, my psychotic deity trapped in the body of a hyper-active 10-year-old SS/INV brute got a more extensive makeover, with all of the powers now in shades of pink. Hopefully this will inspire me to play her more. She's been level 16 for quite a while.

Other than changing my Eng/Eng blaster's pompoms to blue I'm not sure I'll make any other changes. For the most part, my characters were made with the existing effects in mind, or I've just gotten used to them.

The Police Stations can be entered in the regular zones, so there's no need to be in a safeguard.

Malta: Oh, were you planning on using that endurance?

Freakshow: No matter how much it iches, don't scratch it!

Vazhilok: Just think of it as an early organ donation. (Actual quote)

Devouring Earth: So, you chose Super Reflexes? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHa! ... *snrk* BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! !!!!

DE2: Captain Planet!

The MovementControl and MovementFriction stats are quite handy. The jump powers all grant a buff to them, which is what allows you to change direction mid-jump. Notice that normally your the direction of your jumps is almost entirely determined by your momentum before you leave the ground. Fly actually gives a debuff to these stats, which is why you drift so much compared to hover.

Combat jumping is also the open secret to easily earning the badges for the winter event's ski courses.

The Sanitation Engineer

Inv/SS Tanker. A humble garbage man, he was accidentally exposed to improperly-disposed of toxic waste, granting him super-powers. Now he fights for justice while searching for the mad-scientist who dumped the waste, to make him pay the appropriate fine.

Many of you are now cursing yourselves for not thinking of it. Those who are not are filthy liars, and lying is a sin. Oh yes, a name so awesome exists, and it belongs to me (but not on every server ).

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Well, if the goal is to gain xp (and this is how the game is set up), then the smart thing to do is to play each toon for a level and move to the next.

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If it takes 10 days to get 1 level's worth of double xp, it would take 490 days in addition to play time to level a character to 50. If you started at level 20 it would take 300 days. No matter how many characters you have that is not smart.