The Last Controls of Customization

More customization!
but I continue to see a deeply seeded desire in the developers to protect something.
I'm not sure what it is but I think I have some idea, something like defending immersion or the definition of a power itself.
To keep players from changing the theme of the game and, I guess, unraveling the fabric of the universe.

On the old forms, when they were all orange and ookie looking, and before many of the game mechanics were even finalized there were questions as to why powers weren't just 100% customizable. They had just switched to the archetype system to the dismay of many. Some long threads on it with people working out how custom heroes could be done, my own included.

One of the best responses was that Ice looking powers should do ice damage and fire looking powers should do fire damage. The game is based on typed damage. The game world has an element of Negative Energy from a Netherworld which looks dark like this.
They are building a world with consistency where players could get to know the meanings of these effects in the COH universe.

I feel like These controls have been continuing for a long time behind the scenes.
When Villains came out, they had their own costume options. This let them be the ones that looked really gnarly. The heroes could go a little dark also but the Villains had all the truly demented stuff. Their claws, swords and attacks also looked, well, a bit more cruel.

This made it so you could spot a villain, just by their look. Personally, I liked this. The problem I had with it was that villains did not have some of the really heroish options restricted so it was only half way done.
The player base however, which I have found myself more and more in conflict with, took the simpler and more obvious approach of "THEY HAVE IT AND I WANT IT TOOOO!"

So rather than having different looking heroes and villains, heroes were given all the villain options too and now when you go to the costume editor on hero side you need to sift through a huge number of really morbid looking options thinking "what is this? City of Scarred Zombie Skull Heroes?" The players slapped them on the hand with a ruler for restrictions to any options and the developers learned their lesson.
Kind of.

We arnt shooting arrows at people to heal them or shooting ice beams that do 10 ticks of toxic damage or firing eye lazes out of their crotch. I know much of the playerbase would love it if we could do exactly those things and maybe it is going further in that direction but here is the odd thing that I've noticed: They are still being careful with the color palate.

Did you notice how dark or rocky looking all the colors available for Stone Armor are? Or how crystalline light the ice power's palate is? Thankfully no Yellow Snowman! People can now make their much desired green lantern clones but I have the feeling that these color palates are the last bastion of the customization control philosophy.

The players want more and more custom everything and the developers wish the game had started with custom powers in mind but, I'm sure, at some level, they remember to not give them absolutely everything.

Random Super Guy on the Street Comic Heroes are really varied and giving them everything might even be justifiable, if a little scary. (really only practical with a do-over of the entire system or a sequel though)

Kheldians however, a race of energy beings made up exclusively for this particular universe. Should players be given the right to make dark Peacebringers and bright Warshades? Will we be able to stomp on what a Kheldian is? How far will their inevitable customization options allow players to bend their universe?

Maybe they will at last please those who refuse to call their character a Kheldian and hold to the idea that theirs is a wizard who can change into a tentacled being identical to a Dark Nova or whatever. I cant wait to see how their fading defense, which is now only lightly held as an idea, holds out here.

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Did you notice how dark or rocky looking all the colors available for Stone Armor are? Or how crystalline light the ice power's palate is? Thankfully no Yellow Snowman! People can now make their much desired green lantern clones but I have the feeling that these color palates are the last bastion of the customization control philosophy.

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Considering they aren't out yet, no - no one has noticed these things.

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Did you notice how dark or rocky looking all the colors available for Stone Armor are? Or how crystalline light the ice power's palate is? Thankfully no Yellow Snowman! People can now make their much desired green lantern clones but I have the feeling that these color palates are the last bastion of the customization control philosophy.

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Considering they aren't out yet, no - no one has noticed these things.

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Actually, pictures are available in the Color Customization and Comic Con threads. And there's some videos here.

As far as the limitations of colors for Ice, BaBs said it's because the off limits colors make them look like "cartoon gemstones".

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Did you notice how dark or rocky looking all the colors available for Stone Armor are? Or how crystalline light the ice power's palate is? Thankfully no Yellow Snowman! People can now make their much desired green lantern clones but I have the feeling that these color palates are the last bastion of the customization control philosophy.

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Considering they aren't out yet, no - no one has noticed these things.

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Check out the videos that've cropped up recently. You'll see what the OP means.

Interesting points, BudunkBdunk.

In a multiplayer game its important to have a consistent visual language. In Freedom Force, as an example of a single player game, you could just choose a special FX for any power separate from its game mechanics. If you wanted a cold damage to look like a fireball, you could do it, and no-one would be confused beyond yourself.

In CoH, opening up that level of customisation would have possible impact on teammates, or even worse PVP opponents - a Fire Tanker sees you flinging fireballs around, appraches you with a false sense of security and gets whacked with some hefty cold damage!
(You could already do this to some extent by calling your Ice Blaster "Flaming Man" and giving him a red costume covered in flames, I guess )

You do lose some cool options that make sense by blocking this level of customisation. Fearsome Stare with Fire Breath graphics would be suitable for an illusionist/stage magician character, for example - you frighten opponents with an imaginary fire breath that doesnt do any fire damage.

If it were up to me, I'd err on the side of giving the players too many options to choose from. But I can understand why the power customisation is restricted to some degree.

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or firing eye lazes out of their crotch.

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Clearly you are not watching the right mecha shows.

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or firing eye lazes out of their crotch.

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Clearly you are not watching the right mecha shows.

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Or reading the right comics. There WAS a supervillain with a crotch mounted gun . . .

I really could care less what other people do with their costumes, if they look like heroes or villains, or vice versa, or if they are giant towering columns of yellow ice.

I put up with rainbow-dyed plate-armored ogres in the bazaar in EQ. I can live with anything :P

I think the 'defense' of the limitations of power customization happens at several levels:

1. Story/Theme: This is where the 'Ice powers should look like Ice, Kheldians should look like Kheldians' type of arguements are mostly thought to go. The primary objection of course is that many people don't want to work within the limits of the existing story/theme and really want a water blast set, or a 'power to turn into a creepy tentacle monster that just happens to look like a Kheldian'. Power customization isn't really an answer to this anyway (your water blasts just happen to look like a pallete swapped verson of my energy blasts and they do the exact same thing), but it's a step and that's important. Saying that it isn't enough of a step is a legitimate arguement, and if there weren't other factors to consider I doubt it would hold up. Why can't I have cartoonish gemstone armor? Perhaps because...

2. Artistic quality: It's their world; we just play in it. They still have to sell it to other people, and to the media. Screenshots of people making yellow snowmen or patches of very slippery emeralds might seem amusing to some, but they don't, in the opinion of those who have to justify such things, look professional. Polished. The sort of thing that people want to spend money on. And if there's isn't a steady influx of money, then there's no way to get people to do the work. There needs to be a balance between players being creative (which often means looking really, really stupid) and making the game look good. Purple fire is on one side of the equation; yellow snow is on the other. Oh, and in addition to playing with the colors of everything, there's also...

3. Gameplay considerations: This is maybe just as big as the second reason. Someone has already mentioned damage types, which could certainly get confusing for newer player, but the consistency of animations, colors, and visual effects contribute significantly to the ease with which people learn this game. The white squid monster is a Peacebringer and the purple one is a Warshade. Sure you can click on them and bring up their info, but consistent visuals means you don't even have to. I know that I want more fire resistance because I keep getting killed by something that looks like fire. What kind of defense do I need against a water blast? This has already been broken to some extent by the new animations that go along with many of the powers (Footstomp may or may not involve actual stomping and one could make an MA character with 6 'kick' attacks that all leave both feet firmly on the ground) and, as above, there is almost certainly a balance to be struck. Is this it? That's certainly not my call to make, but I think that seeing things through the eyes of a new player might make the desire for wild customization diminish somewhat. It certainly does for me.

I think the question is fair, btw. I just don't think that the justifications for a balanced approach are weak. It will be interesting to see exactly how far it goes...

During a thread during the doom and gloom of pre I13, I was reading a thread about shields, where the topic went to power customization. There were about 5 posts that really caught my attention, to a point I had saved the thread, which is no longer saved cause the server migration destroyed my fave threads list. But basicly the discussion went like this:

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BaBs: We can't to power customization because if you change X in the color sceme, that alters Y and Z in a very bad way. Altering the particles and glow affects in said ways could have some nasty repercussions. Sometimes I hate how they orriginally did things.

Knowledable poster: Well what if you counterbalance by doing <Blank>

BaBs: Well then that has this undesired outcome.

Knowledable poster: Well then you might try it this other way.

BaBs: Well that wont work cause of.... but there might be a way using (a little of A and a little of B) to give limited color options. It wouldn't be all colors, but you could fit colors based off.... (rambles a bit)... but I would need a few more people helping, and we wouldn't have like any new animations for a while...
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And then they hire a bunch of new employees, and we have some customization that was thought to be impossible.

Really the only customization I want to still see is something like for each 50 I have, I want a build your own AT. You pick an AT bonus, a primary, and a secondary (kinda like MA but before MA came out I just wanted it to be absolutely any two powersets so you could play a Regen/WP toon if you really wanted), and you just play as a new Epic type. But between Rogue letting me bring my MM hero side, and 16 letting me play a Rad/Nrg blaster, i'm happy.