Stone Armor - Granite Armor

For those of you with Stone Armor characters, how attached are you to the current appearance of "Granite Armor"? There are a number of issues with Granite Armor that could be elegantly solved by changing the VFX of the power into something more akin to the other armor toggles in the set. IE, your player model and costume wouldn't go away, there would just be a new set of 'Granite' armor pieces overlaid.

I haven't made any decision to do this, it's just one of the options for dealing with the multiple issues we have with Granite Armor and I wanted to get a sense of how many of you guys wouldn't be able to adapt to a change like this.

Before anyone asks, no...we couldn't have it both ways.

Hey I'd be all for this change myself. I never have liked how everyone in granite looks ya know the same. Just like all form taking warshades and pbs look the same.

So we're basically talking about just making the current brown rock armor into a much much stronger looking stone like granite?

Hey if you decide against this could you by chance fix the gender change that occurs when you become granite? Currently when you use a taunt in granite form you sound like a male character regardless even if your character is female.

All for this, sounds like a reasonable solution to "normalise" the armour (note the needed "u" ) with the others in the set, and with other powers in general.

If I'm interpreting this correctly, this would mean we wouldn't change size (notably) when toggling Granite, lots of little Rubbles running around - yay!

I like the fact that you turn into a huge chunk of rock. I wouldn't mind if the actual granite model changed (depending on if the new one looks good of course ). But I'd rather keep the 'huge' effect.

Ideally, what I'd like to see is a few colour-customizable options to choose from that work along similar lines to the current power. (Like all-rock version A, all-rock version B, Crystal A, Crystal B, etc...) Either that or an aura or overall texture put over the costume.

I know that's seriously unlikely, but I'm a bit worried about the idea of just pasting rock bits onto a costume...I'm not a fan of the non-Granite armours, and I really wouldn't like to see Granite go that direction. (Excepting the Psi armour, which is pretty decent.)

I couldn't care less, as long as the result looks good.

I'd prefer new overlays. I really dislike the current preset granite look for my stone tanker. One of the reasons I prefer this game to other MMOs is that my characters look the way _I_ want them to look (especially with I16 -- yay, I16! go, I16!), not look like everybody else's because of equipment. The current preset Granite armor has a feel of other MMOs' uber-equipment-identical-look to it. I'm willing to settle for the Kheld's preset alien racial forms because of canon/story content, but the one-rock-fits-all approach to granite has always bothered me. There is nothing in the game canon that would possilby explain why my stone tanker must look identical to somebody else's.

I would trust, though, that any such change would be done later and not delay I16's rollout.
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I'd trust you to do a cracking job on this one Babs and its worth the time and resources imo. It would mean that the female stonetanks will remain feminine and that would be good.

I vote change. Granite is horrid looking. Thats one reason i'll never make a Stone Armor anything.

I'm all for change. Especially if it helps fix stuff up with Stone armour as a whole. I really want to give the set ago, but keep getting put off =[

Go for it BaBs, I say. After I16, anyone who doubts should be diagnosed for cranial rectal reversal disorder

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I'd be curious to see what it looks like. Most people fear change.

I'd be for a change if maybe some of those "lava" and "crystal" options were thrown in.

The only downside is the removal of the size change. Being a normal sized character, then transforming into a huge rockbeast was a cool trick - one people would probably miss.

I have a question though. Can granite armor only be linked to 1 NPC model? Maybe people could live with granite not being colorable if there were more NPC models to pick from. Personally, I'd like to run around as a Rubble :P

And this now brings up a fear about Kheldians. Do kheldian nova and dwarf forms link to an NPC model? If so that prolly means they wont be colorable either, ever.

Is this an option you're considering so you can push I-16 live soon? If there's a possibility that with more work, you can find a better workaround, I'd hold out for it.

I kind of like the lumbering movement, and heavy sound of the current version but like the idea of being able to cutomise.

Generally for the change.

I don't have a Stone Armor character, though I made a character on Test (who will eventually make it to live) who could BENIFIT from being Stone Armor for her concept, but part of the precise reason I didn't is the appearance/nature of Granite, but more directly the way the rest of the Stone Armor set underperforms (when Granite isn't included in the equation) (see Castle's comments in the "A Buff for Stone" thread). If both of those things changed (especially the second one) I'd love to make the character into Stone on live, but as it is she's more effective as a Willpower (which is what she is on test). I've never felt it was a "valid" playstyle choice to have people take the other armors, then respec out of them, only take Granite, and for example, use Teleport to get around because the other armors "sucked so hard" and they didn't want to run them. If I ran a Stone character I'd like to treat Granite like a "tier 9 panic button" and only use it when needed, and run the others armors 90% of the time, but that would currently be detrimental to the power level of the set. (Yes more of a comment to Castle and possible changes than to BaBs, but both issues work together to turn me "off" of Stone Armor as a set). Maybe if when you overlayed all the toggles together, if they all added up, they'd "match up" to a full body/almost full body "rock" (or crystal or magma, or whatever) form something CLOSE to the current granite? maybe like the first toggle gives you a light coating up to your chest/neck in rock, the second adds some "shoulder pads/pauldrons" type things, and maybe part of a "helment" looking thing, and finally Granite finishes the look off by filling in the "gaps" and making it look like a full suit of "armor"? If something like that was done, I think it would be awesome. People could run all one "type" of armor, or maybe make one of the toggles a "magma" and one a "crystal" so that different parts looked different, however the wanted to play. I would be most pleased if whatever changes incorporated the entire "set" and not just Granite, but those whould have to be coupled with powerset changes that made it worthwhile/desireable to USE all the toggles in the set as well.

Hopefully that's sort of an answer. Basically, I'm for changing it, even though I don't HAVE a character, part of why is because of it's current state.

I much prefer the current Granite, especially since it is one of the few transformations in the game. Being able to go from normal sized person to living monolith is a big part of my stone brute.

If you do decide to change it, please make it completely cover the character, including the head. The current stone armors make me feel like I slapped play-doh on an action figure.

I'm in favor of a revamped granite armor that doesn't turn me into a DE.

A couple people have expressed the concern that they would no longer become huge when turning on Granite, which seems like a valid issue. I'd suggest that you could easily use a costume change at the same time (via binds or manually) to switch to a larger player model, but then I remembered that not everyone has the Super Tailor option from the Science Booster, alas. That particular feature seems basic enough to the game that I dislike it being confined to a booster pack, but I guess that's how it is.

I like the current Granite Armor because you ARE this imovable/indestructable rock man.... but i like the idea of Granite 'overlay' on the costume instead

I vote new stuffs

it sounds like WIN

IMA FIRING MAH AWESOME BUTTON!.... :O

So my interpretation of the question is this:

1. Granite right now replaces you with a stock NPC model.
2. Because of this, power customization is not easy (read: BABs has been having nightmares for months trying to find a way how).
3. In order to make Granite customizable, one option is to have it stop replacing the character, and instead have it be like the other armors, rock all over you.
4. This, however, would stop the growing big effect, which is what might make people sad.

I'm for a new granite. I think the current one looks awful.

I have many granite brutes and tankers. Frankly I play them for what the set has to offer, not the looks. I couldn't care less either way you go. With the problems you've been running into trying to make granite customizable and that it doesn't work well with claws animation, etc., this proposed solution, if it solves all those problems, would be the logical choice.

Before I give a simple yes / no, I'd like to see maybe some concept art or something similar. I expect a lot of people would prefer that to a vague idea of "plates of armour" instead of "huge lumbering rock".

I haven't played an Earth Tanker but been thinking of one. So I'm going to give my points.

I want to see what the ideas for the new armor are. I don't want to vote yes and end up with something that sucks. So Babs Show us some concept art!