LoboStele wrote:
Very cool stuff overall. There's at least 3-4 really good ideas there that I think would work well in future V Sets. Some of those characters are definitely ones that I'd like to see at some point as well.
While we have no expectations that any of these ideas would appear in future V-Sets, tell the gang to pillage away!
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Some things like Karath's and Shimrra's CE may be a tad overpowerd. Hard to say though. Karath's CE would give Accurate to pieces like Dash RS and Cad Bane, which I'm not certain would be good things. Accurate for some of the cheap Sith pieces would be pretty nice though, like the Sith Operative. Karath's granting Shields 1 to Allies would be brutal as well. Krayt with Shields 1 and VCA 6 would make him a really tough cookie. As would other pieces like Bane or Darth Talon.
As CW points out, Saul's CE is for non-Fringe pieces only. Elitist SOB.
Primarily he can help out Carth, Bao-Dur, and a lot of non-Uniques. Without forward thinking to the V-Sets, since there are only a limited number of pieces he an affect, I don't think it's too abusive.
We debated the Shields quite a bit. Since Saul can be Sith or Old Republic, we wanted him to offer something defensive to two factions that seemed to desperately need it. Yes, someone like Krayt becomes more of a beast with Shields, but they you're spending 23 points mostly to buff Krayt.
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I like Daala's CE, and we really do need to see more stuff like that in the game, with 'luck' based abilities.
We were pretty happy with Daala as a nice "flavor" piece. I think her CE captures her history in the Expanded Universe.
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Joruus is well done, and reminds me of another version of him that I've seen elsewhere.
I'll be curious to see how close.
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I like that you guys did Saba Sebatyne, but I don't really feel like there's anything special about her. Nothing to make her stand apart as the savage reptilian fighting machine that she was.
Funny you should say that. We spent a lot of time discussing how hard it is to make a stand-out Jedi in the New Republic, especially if you're looking at a character at the master level. We tried a few different approaches, but most didn't capture her properly, made her feel too much like existing pieces, or were too powerful (at one point, I think she had Triple Attack and Ambush). Ultimately, we hung out hat on Double Attack/Twin Attack as her "thing." With Lightsaber Defense (and high HP) she can take a lof of punishment, and her other Force powers give her good mobility or allow her to become a commander. Ultimately, I think, she's a solid combatant who can fill other roles in a pinch... kinda like the character in the books.
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Celeste looks well done and balanced, with a nice way for summoning new Rakghouls. The CE is good for her as well, and I like how it sort of shows the herding aspect of the Muur Talisman's abilities.
I'm glad Celeste looks good. It reached a point where I almost gave up on the hope that we'd have a finalized version of her.
To put it in perspective, the majority of pieces took less than a dozen pages of discussion. Three of them were in the high teens (with Shimrra being the highest, at 19 pages). Celeste, on the other hand, took 28 pages to hammer out.
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I like how you did Vergere, with a myriad of abilities, that don't really seem to have a whole lot of coherence with each other, but signifies the many different masks she wore throughout the series. The CE is a cool one, and an interesting way to represent her leanings toward the ways of the Vong in terms of enduring pain.
Vergere was a bit of a challenge in patience.
She's such a rich and mutli-faceted character that most of the initial versions wound up with too much going on. We kept having to cut, and kept having to ask ourselves "Does Vergere NEED this?" Ultimately, we wound up with, as you point out, an eclectic list of abilities that really only have one thing in common: they belong on Vergere.
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I really like the idea with Watto, and the sort of Emergency Life Support for Droids. This could get out of hand with Mouse Droids though, seeing as how those are annoying enough to kill as it is. I think it's a solid design though. Just concerns me that the cost might be a little low. Hard to say though, as overall, he's weaker than Leia Hoth Commnander as far as stats go, but the Salvager SA would certainly be more useful than Leia's CE, especially since he's a Fringe as well. Could be REALLY frustrating in Engineer's Nute Gunray squad, lol.
I can definitely see the potential for abuse with Watto. Perhaps the price should have been a bit higher, but we sort of took the Jarael/Dash/"fan favorite" approach with him and went on the lower end. One thing to keep in mind is that because Salvager is not a CE, the range can't be extended. So using Watto probably means risking him or protecting him.
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Cassus cracks me up, as it's obvious that you guys had some similar ideas as the V Set team, which is awesome! At the 33 points, he's less of an auto-include as the Mando CIO from DOTF, but he's got other nice uses instead. The extra movement CE is nice, but not sure if the Mandos really need it. They are already highly mobile as it is.
We were in the process of finalizing the wording on Cassus when the CIO previewed. I had to resist the temptation to compare language.
In many ways, I think what we were trying to do with our custom set parallels part of the V-Set agenda. Like the V-Set, we wanted to try to make the "lesser" factions more playable. Unlike the V-Set, though, we only had 1 or 2 pieces with which to do it, so in some cases there's not as much impact. With the Mandos, we realized that tempo control was one thing they were lacking... but probably something that they didn't NEED. In studying Cassus Fett's backstory, we discovered that he forced the Republic to over-commit, so many of our ideas revolved around allowing him to control the opponent's choice to some extent. Making him anti-temple seemed a good distillation of this.
As for the commander effect--it's almost like you were involved in the conversation! We knew that Cassus was bringing a lot of goodies to the table, but we also knew he needed a commander effect. We wanted something that wasn't powerful enough to drive his cost up, and also something that demonstrated a little synergy with Mandalore the Ultimate. Although it's costly, I think the 2 CEs present a nice synergy. Use Charging Fire to close and attack, THEN Cassus's CE to retreat a step or two into cover.
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Demagol is awesome, and the upgraded Homicidal Surgery is perfect on him. I was really confused by the Force Point, so had to wookieepedia him, and brush up on the end of his story (I hadn't read the last 10 or so KOTOR issues). Interesting stuff. Not sure what granting Mettle to the rest of the Mandos does for you though. Guess it makes him useful in a Sith squad via Ulic, or if you use Vergere to Dark Master one of your other Mandos.
Again, it's like you were involved in the conversations!
As a huge fan of the KotOR comic, I kept pushing to keep Demagol as accurate in tone as possible, and that actually meant that he might not necessarily work too well with the Mandalorians. What does his commander effect get you in the Mandalorian faction? Absolutely nothing. Indeed, it LIMITS the CEs that work on Demagol himself. But he has good synergy with certain parts of the Fringe (as Demagol did), and if you pair him with Mandalore the Ultimate (again, the two worked together in "real life"), you can build on that idea.
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I like the different take on the Yammosk compared to the DOTF version. The CE is pretty strong with Spit Poison and Thud Bug. Not sure how much I would go for that.
It was definitely interesting to see how different the two different takes on the yammosk were, even though both work with the same core concept.
Thanks for the thoughts! I hope my comments may have clarified a few things.