Champions Online Producer Rob Overmeyer is back with answers to a second round of questions in April's Ask Cryptic, Part 2.

LavaLama: What have you planned for crafting?

A: This is a bit of an open question but here goes... There are currently no solid plans to revamp or change crafting in any significant way in the short or even mid-long term. I want to be clear that we can and will address bugs and work to improve crafting but an overhaul isn’t planned at this point. There are some promising updates to an unrelated system that STO is working on that may be used to really improve crafting but that is a ways off. I urge the community to continue to work with us to address any major concerns with crafting so that we can make improvements that are tangible. We'd love to have more feedback regarding what the community wants.

Loganius: A few interviews ago, before the launch of F2P, Poz gave an interview that essentially said that if F2P was financially successful, they'd make a moon zone, as well as two other as of yet unnamed zones. Do you believe F2P has reached this point, or will reach this point in the coming year?

A: Champions Online F2P has been going very well and we are fast approaching a time that we can start looking at our content options beyond Adventure Packs and the Weekly Comic Series. As mentioned in the last SotG we are working on a number of updates that are scheduled to go live before the next zone. The Moon has always called to us but getting it in this year is a stretch. The reason I would want to wait for the moon is to use it as a potential platform for end game and further adventures.

Lastsonofzod: Are there any plans to fix power replacers in this game?

A: We are aware that there are a number of issues with power replacers and the topic of how to fix them comes up regularly. The feedback we have is pretty varied as far as what the fixes should be. I would say we are in the planning stage. Our next step would be testing. Power replacers are not the highest item on our systems list. We would like to tackle rewards before moving on to Power Replacers.

jabu Will there be a few new silver archetypes?

A: Adding more free Silver Archetypes is not planned at this time. We launched with eight free AT’s and plan to keep adding more premium AT’s going forward. We have been thinking about featuring a premium AT as an “of the week” playable Archetype. This is really early and only in the discussion phase.

jabu: When is the "Save Lemuria" project (like the one that happened for Westside and the desert) planned?

A: We are working on a plan for Lemuria and the team has a lot of good ideas of what we can do. They are good and some are drastic but the changes are needed. I don’t have a solid timeframe for a Lemuria redux but I have a strong feeling it would be before a new zone. I’ll give you one of the options we have talked about. This one is on the super drastic end of the spectrum. Drain it, change the levels and tell a whole new story.

Rhyatt: What power set is next on the list for a pass?

A: The next set on the list is Telekinesis, with a primary focus on TK Blades as that will also be our next Archetype. One of the main things we want to do is rework Ego Leech for TK, probably into a true Secondary Energy Unlock. After that, our tentative plan (which could totally change) is to review the Martial Arts sets.

Rhyatt: What is Cryptic's response to the current outrage over Costume Slot pricing?

A: There is a lot of feedback on this topic and admittedly little dev response. It is clear that the price change for costume slots when F2P went live has been a hot topic. We have read through a lot of your feedback and acknowledge that there are a number of players that are not happy with the change. There are also a high number of players that didn’t mind the change as shown by the sales of the single character costume slots. Some of the best feedback we received was that the single character costume slot was priced too high and made more sense as an impulse by. We agree and are reducing the price of the single per character costume slot to 140CP. We are also bringing back the account costume slot item. The new “Account Costume Slots” service will unlock 2 costume slots for every character on your account. The Price will be 450 CP and it will be live soon.

Rhyatt: What's on deck for the 600 day Veteran Rewards?

A: We want to make the 600 day Vet reward bigger than the 500 day reward. We also don’t want to simply hand out an AF and some potions that may not be useful to everyone. The feedback on the previous rewards seems to be about the same across the board that the Bag of Holding Most was the most useful thing to date. The only thing bigger than the bag of Holding Most, is a new bag slot. The 600 vet reward is an additional bag slot.

Rhyatt: Might we hear more about the Comic Series development? Are they entirely replacing Adventure Packs?

A: The current plan is that Comic Series will completely replace the adventure packs but June. Resistance will be the final Adventure Pack and Comic Series will start up shortly after. Our current plan is to have the first comic series start in June.

Dardove: Personal Bases? Probably too early to get hard details, but can we get any hints?

A: I’ll give you a hint but I’m going to keep it short. Yes...July...Hideouts!

Dardove: Are there any plans to make elite more worthwhile? Things like better loot, increased chance at rare drops from bosses, new perks with new rewards for beating bosses on elite?

A: There has been some really great feedback and good discussion on this topic over on PTS. We are currently looking at how we can improve the rewards for teams and difficulty level across the board. This will take some time and we will need to make sure it is solid before it rolls out to PTS. For Elite rewards specifically, we are looking to add elite rewards to Lair bosses. The hope is that we can make this happen as part of the Lair Reviews.

Dardove: Any updates coming for action figures? Series 2? animal based action figures like kittens?

A: Adding kittens or puppies isn’t currently planned. We have our animators pretty busy with other things. I would really like to get a kitten AF and as soon as I can convince someone to animate a kitten and an artist to model it I will get it in Champs.

Dardove: Firewing and Nighthawk show up in the new loading screen. Can we expect to see them ingame at some point?

A: There is currently no plan to add Firewing and Nighthawk to the game. It is not impossible but not planned at this point. I think we would want to craft a good story for their entrance into Champs. Our wonderful concept artist put together the new loading screen and added elements from the Champs IP. It was really cool to see the community during F2P Beta figure out who those mysterious heroes were.

Dardove: Any movement on permanent fluff devices for things like Cupid's Arrow and Foxbat's Foam Finger?

A: Event items are designed to be available for a limited time during the event they are a part of. There are currently no plans to create permanent versions of the event devices. We really want to keep them exclusive to the event.

Flaky_Olly: A while back Loganius proposed the creation of an rp zone to which one would have to spend Cryptic Points to access, in order to deal with many of the complaints of the roleplaying community. Is there any word on plans regarding such a zone or any new areas intended for RP?

A: I don’t think we want to create an RP zone that you pay for but additional free social spaces are much in line for what we can do. There is a good chance that some of the updates we have planned will add more of the RP locations that you’re looking for. There have also been a few ideas discussed by the team for some additional social spaces but there is nothing locked down. The RP communities’ suggestion of creating RP versions of some of the nicer, larger mission instances does have some promise and we will be looking into making that happen.

Violetdea: Can us girls have a proper sit emote? All these leg spread ones are kinda gross.

A: This seems like an easy one that we can take care of. Consider it on the list of things to do in the short term.

Roxstar Are y'all working, will begin working, have worked, or are even thinking of working on the Earth set talked about so long ago?? I MUST KNOW!!!

A: An Earth framework... hmm, I wish I would have heard about this idea earlier! In all seriousness, when we looked over feedback from the community on which power sets players would like to see Earth and a Heavy Weapon set were at the top of that list. We're wrapping up the Heavy Weapon set currently, and Earth is the next set on our list. It won't be something you'll see things about next week, or even next month, but we do plan on working on it this year. After that, we'll again be looking at the community to see what set we'd like to do next. That doesn't mean you should go out and post dozens of poll threads about which set would be TEH MOST AWESOMZE because seeing the same people repeating the same things (which frequently happens in these types of threads) doesn't help us as much as seeing varied topics bring provided by many different players with different interests in the game.

Rune What exactly happened to the last ten levels of Champions Online? Why exactly was all further development towards the original level cap stopped?

A: The last 10 levels of Champs didn’t just vanish. During Alpha and Beta we realized our game progression couldn’t support a level cap of 50. The biggest issue was exp curve and rewards. We were shooting for a number of content hours at launch and we hit it before 50. I think you touched on the issue when you were playing at 45 with fake numbers and without stats. We had to make the adjustments to Champs to have level 40 be our cap at launch. STO’s development had nothing to do with the change to the VIB levels. We worked very hard to build content that could support the increased level cap but the rewards (stats and itemization) remained an issue. In order to increase the level cap we need to update how itemization and rewards work post 40. This is something that we are actively discussing now. Revamping rewards is a HUGE task and there are no quick solutions. A rewards revamp will not herald the initiative to raise the level cap but it will make it possible.

clariondelaffalot About the summons and other fun or quality of life devices at the C-Store... do you have any plans about increasing their duration/charges to make them more usable as actual Fun/QOL items?

A: The Cost and function of the C-Store devices is something we look at constantly. We also look for feedback on their usefulness. At this point we are looking more at cost than function. If there are specific concerns or issues with the C-Store devices please let us know.

_Pax_: Do you have any ideas what the 700 day reward will be? Will veteran's rewards be extended at least through the nice, round number of "1,000 days" ...?

A: The 700 day vet reward is not locked down in any way. As with the 600 day reward the feedback from the Veteran players will be play a big part of what the 700 day vet reward ultimately becomes. As we get closer it would be great to start a thread for feedback. The Champs vets are a great group of players and we really appreciate you being such a big part of Champs. I can see the vet reward continuing for some time. A thousand days seems like a good number to shoot for.

Inertial: Cosmic villians: Any info on more cosmics being added, Megaladon, or additions to the ones we have.

A: There are currently no plans to add more cosmic villains to the game as they are currently implemented. I am going to have to be a little vague on this one but we would like to have our future cosmic villains to be a little more engaging and offer more than just a stand up fight. While cool in some cases, the roving lone monster doesn’t work everywhere. A better solution is cosmic fight that requires more than waiting for a monster to simply spawn in.

Inertial Instance Scaling: More info on what this would entail, including maybe scaling up of supervillians into legendary or SL style Toughs ala CoH's Archvillian system.

A: In the initial pass for scaling instances we are adding scaling encounters to all mission instances. Previously only a handful of instances and Adventure packs had encounters that scaled to team size. Now, all mission instances will scale to team size when your difficulty is set to “Difficult” or higher.

Inertial: How do they scale?

A: Currently the encounter will increase in number and in some cases rank. As the team size increases so does the number of critters in the encounters. There are also increase in Rank and the addition of enforcers the higher the team size. There is a great thread on PTS with a ton of feedback on how you would like to see scaling encounters work. The best part is that it fits with what we have planned going forward. What we would like to do is build our encounters so they change in interesting and challenging ways. The goal would be to scale them up via rank and ability instead of across in just numbers. There will be a place for tons of AE justice but we don’t want it to be the only definition of increased difficulty.

Keep in mind these changes to encounters will need a lot of testing and feedback before going live. Additionally converting the current encounters would take a lot of work. Not scary work but it would need to be scheduled.

Rune: Is there a chance we can see some of the longer outstanding bugs addressed? Average female stance walk animation has been my pet peeve for over a year now, and this boggles my mind, but that's only one of many.

A: Currently our internal QA group is working on verifying, classing and assigning issues listed in the thread linked as well as a few others. The team will be taking a good amount of time to address as many of these outstanding issues as we can in priority order. Issues that require follow up will get such follow up so they can be addressed. Keep in mind that some issues may require more time to address than others.

gandales: What are some specific plans to enhance the nemesis system?

A: There are currently no specific plans to enhance the nemesis system beyond adding the new frameworks to the Nemesis and minion creator. There has been a lot of terrific feedback about what you would like to see in the nemesis system and there are a lot of possibilities but a nemesis update is not on the current schedule.

WillBlack: Do you plan on doing any more Dev-interactive or Community events?

A: In short yes. The first part of the plan is to support our wonderful GM’s that regularly run in-game contest by making items that they can give to content winners. We really enjoy putting dev events together and need to find the time to hop on live and play. We have been a bit heads down on a few updates but have been talking about specific things we can do as far as events. The costume contest was a lot of fun and the Duratok device will be in game soon. We will have to put our heads together and see what we can come up with for the next community event winner.

Smackwell: Is there any plans for a C Store travel power that alters the animation for Super Speed and Acrobatics?

A: There is a good amount of feedback and some pretty passionate requests for a new run animation for SS/Acro. Creating a new movement animation is a lot of work. There is also a lot that we have to build to make sure the animation works with multiple powers and stances. If you recall acro/muni had a number of issues and every once in a while the backflip just looks odd. A new upright run anim would be cool and it isn’t impossible but there are a few other things we want to hit before a new run anim.

Brou: If there will be a moon zone, will those of us with non-human heads be able to wear space helmets? I'd hate to depressurize and perish out in the twinkling voids of space.

A: If we make a Moon Zone all non-human headed heroes will have the option of using the “NEMAD” (near earth micro atmosphere device) or fitted collar that projects an invisible force barrier around the head of the wearer ;)

crazyguy: When are we getting team dueling?

A: There has been some discussion about getting this in and working correctly. The final sticking point is how we handle ring out. The current thought is that there could be no ring out and allow for map wide duels. There is also some UI work that we need to do as well as decide how we initiate a team duel request. An opt in pop up window for the team is a possibility but the rules for accepting the team duel need to be ironed out. At this point there is no exact date for team dueling.

Vincyre: First, any possibility of alternate emanation points for powers such as ego blast or other powers with only one possible animation?

A: There isn’t any reason we couldn’t look into adding some more but it hasn’t really come up. We can look into it for a future update but keep in mind there may be some limitations and not all powers are meant to be used with all animations.

Vincyre: And lastifyingly last, is there any plan to add more weapon skins for existing weapon powersets? I know that swords could use some more tech skins. (laser sword pleez! >.>)

A: This has come up while making the heavy weapon framework and getting the various large weapons skins ready for the game. We are currently looking into building a list of what we would like to make for new weapons. So far the list covers weapon unlocks for martial arts, Gadgeteering and even more heavy weapons. I am sure a poll of some sort will get posted to get some ideas of what you would want to see.

T-Hawk: Are there any plans to add the VB costume drops to the C-Store?

A: At this point there are no plans to add the VB costume drops to the C-Store. We have just completed another review of the costume unlock drop rates.

T-Hawk: A lot of the new content has been either magic based or mercs with guns. Are there any plans to return to actual comic-book style tight-wearing evildoers who actually have innate superhuman powers? We can get magic and guns in other games - it's the superpowers that make the genre.

A: We have a good amount of magic based plots and intend to roll out some classic villain plotlines that feature less magical baddies.

Ishain: there been new version travel powers being talked about and released like light speed is there more coming beside rainbow flight that can tell us about or hint at?

A: Travel Power skins are pretty fun and we intend to make some more. The current requests are Light Flight and Light Jump. We are also thinking about making Light Ball. In the end we will try to make travel power skins that you really want to see. Look for a poll asking for your vote on our next travel power skin.

mistformsquirrel: Oh oh! When can we expect the first Comic Series?

A: The first comic series is currently scheduled to launch the last week of May or the first week of June.

Backhand: Will we ever see 'aura' type costume pieces? Taking 2 examples from the new load screen would be fiery wings and mental energy hair.

A: Auras are something that is definitely on our list of things we want to get in the game. There have been a number of discussions about how we can get them in the game and accessible to you. One solution is to make them costume parts that you can select in the tailor. The only issue we have come across is how we deal with aura stacking and continuing power FX. What we don’t want to see is aura overload with no way to select what aura is on or off. I am sure you can imagine how odd it might look with your passive aura, a buff aura, fire flight and glowing Psi body glow all going off at once. Once we work out the UI and Aura stacking issue we can get them in the game.

Thundrax: Will you put the emotes that were pulled from the summer update into the C-store?

A: There are currently no plans to sell emote packs in the C-Store. Special emotes may come along with a device as a bonus but are not intended to be sold alone or in packs.

AngelOfCaine: When are bags going to be removed from ALL reward drop lists?

A: there are a lot of bags in the reward tables and it has been a task to find and remove them. There of course is a place for them occasionally but it does seem like they show up everywhere. Bags will not be removed completely from the reward lists be should start to drop with less frequency over time.

sorudo: are there any plans on lowering "some" restrictions for free members?

A: There are currently plans to remove the access restrictions for adventure packs as special weekend promotions. These promotions will also come with a bonus for playing the adventure packs.

sorudo: Some missions are to much made for team play so when playing solo the enemy boss is simply to powerful, will the missions be fixed to address that issue?

A: Sorry to hear that you’re having trouble. We can take a look at the missions and deal with specific issues. Bugs with missions or bosses should be addressed on an individual basis. Please report any mission issues you are having as bugs so we can take a look at them.

Airdeez121: When are the "Archetype-to-Freeform" retcon tokens that I've heard promised somewhere going to come about?

A: They should be available soon. We want to get them out by the end of the month. They are called Retrain Tokens and will allow 1 more conversion of a character. So Gold Free form Characters will be able to retrain into AT’s. If you want to take that character back to a free form you will need to retrain again. There are more details about how they work but those will be clarifications will be available when we are ready to get them in the game.

Link to the forum post