APP/PPP Customization woes

This really smacks of a Neuron approach to design and implementation. Add something that's only half done, then abandon it and go on to add something else that's only half done, then abandon that and move on to the next new shiny.

I say this not to troll, but rather to say that it seems to me that the developers are all too focused on adding new stuff over fixing or finishing told things.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Damn I almost forget the rage I feel when I see those powers that still cant be customized.
This stopped me to playing some alts, because when I create an alt with a concept, I dont like to be forced to grab powers that look crappy, or have a different colour, or dont fit at all.
Im stuck with some of my characters, specially after inherent fitness.
I really wish I could have medicine pool, hasten, super speed, and teleport.
I hate the FX of those powers. Same for tough "Tarzan's scream and chest beating" from fighting pool. I HATE IT!
Seriously, who thought those FX were a cool idea back in the day?
Always grabbing fly or super jump is boring, but I cant stand those pools powers with the current FX.
Give us APP/PPP customization NAO, please!

I'm one of the few that aren't so bothered.

Khelds, well that's just the way they are. That bluey-whiteness you like really gets your washin... oh wait and the dark purple too... that's what distinguishes them and that's what they do.

With the PPP the powers are "lent" to you by your Patron. They are that colour because they are that colour. That's what you got, now live with it... and if you want to go tell Ghost Widow you don't like her as a patron because her soul extraction isn't a luminous yellowypink then good luck to you

Yes, Hasten does look HORRIBLE but nobody has to take it. It's in no way mandatory.

I'm surely in a minority but power customisation is far less significant to me than new content.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

If you had told me at the launch of Issue 16 that on the verge of i20's release we still didn't have full Power Customization I wouldn't have believed you.

I would have defended the devs saying "There's no way they'd leave one of their crowning achievements (Power Customization) unfinished like that for so long, my guess is full customization within the next 2 issues, probably sooner."

Now here we are 16 months and almost 4 issues later, Power Customization stands incomplete with the same gaping holes it had at launch. I hope this topic gets brought up again and again at PAX East, please remind them how important it is they finish Power Customization properly.

It's Oppressive Gloom for me. I'd probably do a green Dark Miasma at some point, but as soon as I turn on OG I look a little like Tentacle Christmas. It's just an unfortunate color clash. I'd also really like alternate Medicine options that fit a magic character. Something like Healing Flames, or the Peacebringer heals, or Empathy.

Power customization was huge in reviving my interest when I'd run out of ideas, and doing the epics and pools would be really nice. It's probably the number one thing I want at this point. (For me, my character's powers and appearance are most of the content. Story arcs and such are a lesser piece, for me.)

But I don't see the point in running down the existing appearances of the powers as they are. Wanting more creative control over appearances makes sense to me, but I wouldn't want to be the art department around here, as it seems like whenever someone asks for new power customizations, costumes, base items, etc, manners go out the window and terms like "hideous" get slung around. I don't think that helps the request get priority.

By the way, PPP powers have long since not been lent powers. Now a days you can convince a Nightwidow to help your cause as a Hero. Black Scorpion specifically says "I'll tell you some of my secrets, but not all of them!" indicating any technology he declassifies to you is yours to do what you will of it.

sign me up for this one. Also, I find it amazing that whenever we get a new power set, it does not make it into the APPs as well. I hate that my psi/psi blaster doesnt have some willpower awesomeness to go with his psychic abilities.

My take on things: (trivial as it may be)

I play this game for the xperience of controlling a super-powered character. I enjoy this game more than other games of the same, if not other genres, as it gives so many possibilities...but this is just a symptom. To be more exact, it gives enough of the right possibilities that by the time I'm done I can have a character that is unique enough and true enough to an idea that it can stand on its own.

Before power customization, I had to be conternt with conveying this through name, bio, and costume. The powers were hit and miss, because as an experiencial level they'd appear much the same as from another character totally different. The devs did something very cool in that now we CAN customize characters' abilities and arsenal to not just be unique and diverse, but pretty darned accurate to a concept we come up with. Granted there are limitations, but you can have many takes on the same power just with some tweaking. An earth controller can be the manipulator of rock, diamond, lava, plastic, multi-colored candy formations, large ice formations, burning coal, magical hellstone, reeking piles of manure, the list goes on. Before they'd be the guy that controls rocks.


Power pools/patron/ancillary pools are our powers too- here's where I sometimes sense a disconnect with devs at some points. These are in some way stated as being outside the player's abilities, yet still in their repituire.
...what?
Power pools/ancillary/patron abilities can be as important to a character as their primary and secondary. A fire/fire/fire character has that last x/x/fire because they can control fire in the first two spots. A fire/fire/mace character is someone who is skilled enough with technology and weaponry to know how to handle himself with both fire and a customized arachnos mace.


Just look at all the character built along the 'quick' theme. Heck, take Synapse. Give the guy superjump instead, see how his character holds up. He is defined by an extra ability. I greatly enjoy the ability to make powers from the primary/secondary 'my own,' to fit into a character's concept. I think the work done on it was exemplary, and is a subtle but main reason I still am playing- because it solidifies the experience of playing 'my character' in gameplay.

This has the downside, though, of making all the more apparent the areas where there is an exemption. A character that siphons away energy into death-dealing blasts, all in the same green color to coorelate the connection between the two...has neon orange glow when he hits his speed mode, and has e a purple glow in his energy deflection aura-why? Well, handwave it away, and try to pretend it's not there. Because his mastery over speed increase is...um...he found it on the street at level 6? No way. It's him using his energy reservs to function faster. It's his power, because he could learn it just as easily as he could learn a new energy attacks. He can get better at using it using enhancements just like he can with powers he picked at character creation.

Hey devs: you've done an awesome job at allowing us to experience play as not just unique characters, but characters that can be detailed and refined to give the experience of playing a super-powered being as fully realized as in many a comic book- let's complete that by making the last few abilities that we can learn and enhance fit the bill as much as the two sets we get at the start. The more a player can distinguish and 'claim' their character, the more they will grow attached to it. That means more time in your game playing with it- a win/win for you and your customers.

-That's my overinflated two cents anywise.

Rather than being able to customizing APP or PPP I'd rather be able to turn off the obnoxious effect of Hasten.

Not that I don't want to be able to adjust the colors of the epic pools, but the Hasten effect is just to egregious to allow to continue any more.