Disabling Power Customisation

I was just wondering if it is possible to turn off power customisation for other players so that the server just shows the default animations for each power set?

The reason I am asking is twofold, first I seem to have noticed an increase in lag since i16 which I am having to put down to the server having to send me extra data about each characters power sets in order to have them render correctly and secondly what I like to call the 'My Eyes' effect, as in 'my eyes, my eyes, oh my god my eyes' which resulted in me having to run a MoSTF earlier with a pretty much constant headache from our sonic defenders choice of colours for his large bubble which took up most of my screen.

Now I know I probably sound all whiney and we've all waited years to be able to do this but some colour combinations I don't think we should have to be forced to look at for hours at a time and the option to turn it off on my end would still allow people to have there fun without forcing me to look at it if I don't want to.

Agreed. Vivid colors on the area-effect Forcefields and Sonic Shields makes for badness.

Now, more even than before, I avoid searching for Controllers to add to my team. At least Defenders only have ONE excessive-visual set.

My eyes work mostly based on color. Too many flying colors means I'm effectively blind. =/

Its already been stated that power cusomtization cause no extra lag, now on the other hand I know what you mean when you say those huge dispersion bubbles are to be nice badly colored.

I don't care if they did this just wanted to state it cause no extra lag.

This is on the same level as "please make hideous costumes appear generic to me" and, unfortunately, most likely impossible.

When you're doing stuff online with people who do stuff online, I'm afraid dealing with people that have no fashion sense or concept of colour coordination is an occupational hazard.

Ever thought of turning your Max Particle Count down? Probably wouldn't help in all occasions, but it would certainly help *cough*fire*cough*

At least I was nice when i changed my colors. I used darker colors that didn't blind people but were still light enough for people to see that I used them (they are darker than the stock colors choice.) I had a bad experience with someone that thought all powers should be neon colors and as bright as they could be. Most of the team left after one mission.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that's bothered by the huge *** obstructive bubbles. Seriously, there needs to be a new palette or tinting method for the large bubbles. The way it is now, they can be very annoying if tinted poorly. It's not about being ugly, it's about force fields being all up in my face.

I'm all for an option to disable power customization for people that want that, but I really do like what some people have done with their powers. I'd love an option to toggle colours off per person, kind of like a customization ignore list.

IIRC It's not when you load a zone (An outdoor zone rather than an instanced mission) that you get all the infomation about all the players in it.

You won't recieve any data about a person's costume and powers untill you are 140 yards (in game ) away from them, this explains a number of things, such as why the "quite" room in the Architect Entertainment building is "quite", it's not only the fact that powers can't be used inside it but also that it (like most buildings) is far far underground, the main body of the Architect building was the first building (I know of) in CoX to actually be placed inside it's outer shell (the one that you see from the outside), the rest are usually far underground as can be seen when you click on an team-mate's name in the team window whilst they are in a hospital or such. The only exeption I know of to the 140 yard rule is team-mates, You can certainly see them from over 140 yards away so you probably either start recieiving data about them the minute you join the team or when you enter the same map as them.

I don't really see why the new power customization should cause lag, aside from if your computer's having alot of trouble processing all the different colours, but this would have happened before anyway (although not to such extent).

The flickering of a team-mate's map statis doesn't really concern me and I don't see how it could be caused by power customization, what annoys me more is the bug where it confuses Supe Group bases with Missions, this is more of a practical concern for me especially on team's looking for more members or upping the difficulty and Mayhem and Safeguard missions.

I would like this option as well, but for a slightly different reason. When I am playing, what is happening to the team changes the way I act. I will redirect firepower to help a team mate who is in trouble when playing a blaster, or use other powers when playing a support/fighter.

I don't LIKE having to sort out what power is what with so much variation. I start seeing wierd colors and what not, and I have to think much longer and harder on what to do.

Is that a custom power being used by a friendly, or a debuff being applied to a team mate?
There is a nuts and bolts utility to knowing what powers are being used at a glance!
Split second thinking is slowed down when I have to figure out what is what.
That and some folks like colors that seriously interfer with my vision in a cave.

I'd asked before for a costume ignore tag. I can see it extending to powers now also. What I'd want would make someone's costume choice and power choices go generic. I'd specifically use it for people who decide it's great to run around pretending to be naked, or some form of sex slave, and now for people who think that the "dark" option looks so awsome and they have to use it whenever they can. (it doesn't look awsome.. it looks like someone wrote on my monitor with a black crayon).

However, I should add, that most of the problems I had with the dark auras were in the first week after i16 launch. I think a lot of people decided they couldn't stand the ugly-stick powers themselves and changed back to something less disrupting.

What I'd like is a suppressotherfx option to turn off fellow player's effects. The big force bubbles (customized or not) give me something similar to motion sickness, especially in the purple caves (which give me headaches at the best of times).

If we could turn off all PC FX it would fix both our problems. Leave it on most of the time but off when someone particularly annoying comes along.

I'd love to be able to turn off other people's power customization.

For the people complaining that it's the same as making an ugly costume generic, remember that there's not a 'basic' costume that people have been used to for 5+ years. A player can play without customizing their powers, but they can't play without customizing their character's appearance. Even selecting one of the costumes from the dropdown and tweaking the colors is a form of customization.

Costumes also aren't a functional part of the character in play. I have to see and understand the effects of other player's powers in order to react to them appropriately. Ugly Bob plays just as well with my Grant Invis on him as he does without, but if Ugly Bob's a Mind/Psi dom with all his powers colored sky blue, I'll have no idea what he's doing short of 'punching people with his brain'.

Generally I am all for more options in the game, even if it's something I personally wouldn't use; however, this is one I hope doesn't make it.

A player's costume, aura, and now powers are a personal representation of how they want their character to be perceived and no one else should be able to change that. If you don't like someone's visual elements, don't team with them. Easy enough solution. I've left plenty of teams through the years because I found someone's costume to be a garish eyesore.

Does anyone else see the irony in the OP's name containing the word "Neon"?

Seriously, I like the recommendation that those with a bright or garish power color scheme choose a costume slot to have a more subdued one. People were kicked for having the old Sonic effects back when it made people physically sick, and that wasn't even something they could do anything about, so if someone is trying to cause trouble with their colors, then just kick them.

There are many reasons why I16 might have more lag than I15, though, from bugs in the graphics code revealed by the power customization, to the changes for Super Sidekicking and Difficulty settings. If you're used to running with a team of five, and all of a sudden you are getting spawns for eight, you will get more lag because there are more critters on the screen.

The graphics themselves are no more intensive than they were before, they just are color tintable where they were not before, and a lot of powers (I understand) were tintable, there was just no interface to allow that, outside of the devs going in and editing the script. I suppose it's possible some of the new themes, like Dark, might introduce more lag since they are different than the old FX, but the No/Minimal FX options should give you LESS lag, not more. That leaves the transfer of the character costumes across the network, and that should only be an issue when you first load, not during gameplay.

I'm guessing you could make the Legacy graphics override the new ones on some sort of flag, that is now the old graphics override the No FX options in PvP zones. Still, I'm afraid this is a "solution" that would leave you still lagging just as much, and still having to deal with garish or obnoxious costumes.

You can't tell whether I can see your custom powers or not, so what does it matter to you? On the other hand, it might save people some eye strain during large-scale events like zone invasions and mothership raids, where you can't just kick someone with a hot pink sonic bubble.

I would honestly like far more customizable "do not see" options for a lot of the game's graphics. There comes a point where "flashy and cool" crosses the line into "so much flashy I can't see anything but."