Members of the Champions Online team have answered a ton of questions in the newest Ask Cryptic segment, and they cover everything from power balancing to the Nemesis system.

One player asked how travel powers will be balanced against melee heroes who can only move horizontally. According to the answer, the team's "going to crazy lengths to make sure that players have every tool we can think of available to them to balance the scales," such as stuns and thrown objects. The team also suggests teamwork will help players balance the strengths and weaknesses of the various powers.

The team also hints that while you can't currently have more than one Nemesis, "that doesn’t mean that your various Nemeses can’t work together at some point in the future however." Could your hero have his or her very own rogues gallery? We'll have to wait and see. The open beta for Champions Online is set to begin sometime in August. You can read the full Q&A after the jump.

Also, in case you missed it, check out the trailer for the Hero Games PvP system and keep an eye out on ZAM.com for our interview with Design Director Bill Roper, as well as Andrew "Tamat" Beegle's impressions on PvP in Champions Online.

It's everyone's favorite time again! Ask Cryptic is the column where you ask questions, and we answer them! Thanks to Bill Roper, Brian Urbanek, Kate Bankson, John Hopler, Chris Chamberlain, Noah Holmes, and Randy Mosiondz for their help with this column. Want to ask your questions? Check out the next edition's thread right here!

Do we get to choose the glowy costume options at creation, or is there a level requirement for that? – Shaolinwind

At creation!

Will there be a kind of "danger room" simulation to learn to fight bosses and help build teamwork for players? Like set up certain simulations and run them with your super team. – Cute

We don't have an area where players can set up specific fights, but we do have a training area called the Power House. When your hero levels up and has a new power slot available, you can go to the Power House to train up. This area has a number of rooms where you can test your new power and try out different combinations of power colors and emanation points in safety. If you decide the new power is not for you, you can easily retcon it and try a new one.

You discussed briefly on Ten Ton Hammer about balancing ranged vs. melee powers in PvP. However, how is the use of travel powers being factored into this? Whatever bonuses are given to the melee player, he/she still has to chase down the ranged player before attacking, which would be extremely difficult if the ranged player was faster, and impossible if he/she used flight or superjump against a melee player whose travel power is strictly horizontal. What, if anything, is being done to preclude this situation? – The_Dark_Lord

It is absolutely possible for a player to generate an extremely powerful melee combatant, and for that player to eschew any ranged power or disabling power and just focus on damage, damage, and more damage with a smattering of resilience. The whole point to a classless system is to let you, the players, make choices, and for all of those choices to be viable and work in general, but to always have consequences.

That being said, we’re going to crazy lengths to make sure that players have every tool we can think of available to them to balance the scales. Lots of power sets have travel power disables, or lunges, or roots, or stuns, or some other mechanism that aids melee characters in dealing with speedy or ranged opponents. Additionally, there’s thrown objects. Hitting a flying guy with a flung park bench or a truck or something tends to disrupt any and all travel powers for a few seconds. Finally, there’s teamwork. If you really want to be melee master we suggest you get some friends who can balance your weaknesses vs. their strengths.

Do missions scale with the level and numbers of Heroes in the group? – Rendel

Most of the persistent world missions have a fixed difficulty, but villains in combat with three or more heroes often send one of their number to get reinforcements and even up the battle. The opposition on many of the instanced maps does scale in number and power to the size of your team.

Reading through the details about the end-game Omega System, this little snippet caught my attention: "Defeating your Nemesis is one thing, but do you have the mettle to fill out your Nemesis Gallery with numerous deadly enemies?" Does this mean we can have more than one primary Nemesis gunning for us? – TheChimpy

Currently, no. That doesn’t mean that your various Nemeses can’t work together at some point in the future however…

Will we be able to retcon/respec our characters back to square one, essentially making retconning as powerful as rerolling? Or will we, instead, be limited in how far back we can retcon changes? – LordVance

“Retcon (or “retroactive continuity”) has a progressive cost based on how far back you want to roll back your character. If you don’t like a power you just bought, it’s relatively easy to retcon. Changing powers that were established earlier on in your character’s history gets more expensive. Of course if we make changes to powers we plan on providing full or partial retcons to characters with those powers.

How much would we be able to see of people, places or things (nouns!) on the maps? Will there be waypoints, markers or some kind of sign or arrow to show us the way? Or will we have to seek and find (great for those who have the time to do so and like to explore in the process, but not everyone has the time or inclination for that sort of thing)? – Captain_Intrepid

We actually have a fairly detailed icon and area waypoint system in the game which we tried to balance between convenience and immersion. Large icons are used to denote landmarks and points of interest. Smaller icons are used to denote important contacts, commonly used services, game functions, etc. Area waypoints are used to designate the general area to investigate for mission objectives.

Will there be an open beta? – DaveNX01

We’ll definitely have an open beta, and we’re planning for it to launch sometime in August. Keep an eye on our website for an exact date once we get a little closer.

Will there be destructible environments? Can I throw someone through a wall and watch the building/wall collapse? Will things like bullets and fireballs leave a mark? – monkeyguy331

There is a mix of destructible and non-destructible environments. There are a number of destructible objects in every environment that you can use to pick up and smash people (the higher your Strength, the more objects are available) or that simply get blown up in the course of a battle between super-powered heroes and villains. We also use a “splat” system when powers are used to leave marks on the ground, scorch marks, etc.

What's the deal with auras and the like? I've seen screenshots of characters "bathed" in fire or surrounded with coloured energy fields - does this mean we can make our heroes look as though they're made of pure fire, or pure ice, or pure electricity and the like? – Sammu

These are power FX, which can happen several ways. It might be something like fire flight, where your character engulfs themselves in flames to fly around and thwart evil, or it might be that once your energy bar hits max level as an electricity user, your body changes into an entire being of electricity!

In general, Auras only turn on when you’re actually in combat, and automatically turn off when you’ve been out for a few seconds. Additionally, Auras, like almost all our powers, have Master Ranks. Generally at Rank 1, the aura is transparent effect that is mostly visible at the edge of your character (this is called a Fresnel Effect). At higher ranks, the Aura becomes more saturated and full.

Will power descriptions all show clearly the numbers behind them? Or will this data be completely hidden from players when building their characters? – astewart

As a point of policy, we don’t believe in obscuring or obfuscating the numbers that drive our powers. That being said, we need to hide a lot of the depth in our interface, because the actual complexity of what’s going on “under the hood” is absurdly complicated. We’ve tried exposing the totality of the mechanics in the tooltips, and the result was a twisted mass that has broken the sanity and will of our testers and has not once but twice nearly allowed the great old ones to break into our world by riding a stream of shattered minds and hollowed out souls. So, yeah. The best answer we can give is “we’re working on it.”

Will crafted travel powers (hover disk, flying carpet, etc) be actual travel powers or just power replacers (like only Flight characters can use the hover disk)? – Yoshinori

Any crafted items that grant travel abilities will be useable by anyone that own the upgrade. That means that your character doesn’t need to have flight as a core travel power to be able to use an upgrade that has a flight-based travel ability.

Do we have to go to a trainer and level, or can we do this anywhere? – Wild9ride

Characters can go to any of the conveniently located entrances to the Power House. This facility is designed to allow heroes to try out their new-found powers in a test environment loaded with specialized equipment. What this means to players is that they can try out powers before they become an ongoing part of their character. There are stationary and mobile targets, and different levels of offensive weaponry to test defensive powers against.

What's been the biggest challenge recently concerning development of the game? While it's good to listen to feedback from beta testers how does Cryptic handle "false positives" concerning (sometimes a large) group of people asking for a change to a mechanic or power? – Wild9ride

The real challenge is to properly correlate the data from different sources into usable data points: beta boards, beta bugs, beta surveys, internal quality assurance testing, generated data logs, etc. Once we identify that there is significant problem with the associated mechanic or power it comes down to reproducing the case in point internally through QA and design team testing, identifying if it is truly a problem or just a symptom of a problem, then addressing it by coming up with various solutions that work within our time budget and available resources.

Will there be any kind of journal that records your super/hero/villain adventures (Number of kills, stories completed etc)? – Fhuzzy

Yes! In Champions we call these Perks, and they are recorded in a special tab of a player’s journal. Perks are records of heroic deeds and accomplishments that a character has done such as defeating a large number of VIPER agents or bringing a Super-Villain, like Talisman, to justice. They’re called Perks because as a result of their heroism, player heroes are awarded benefits including titles and Perk points. Perk points can be spent at a special vendor who sells capes, costume pieces and even some special gear items.

What will be the currency in CO? – Digipass

Resources are available on the local, national, and global level. This currency is an abstract that represents personal wealth, charisma, influence, favors owed, etc. There are also special currencies based around specific factions in the game.