APP/PPP Customization woes
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-11-20 21:45 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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No reason why they can't do all 3. They can start by not firing team members and expanding the dev team. Have one team work on content and the other working on costumes, animations and QoL.|
Originally Posted by EvilGeko
Correct. Which is why we need to finish power proliferation and add Inventions where there are weak or incomplete choices (Targeted AoE) before we even think of spending the time to do pool and epic customization.
 *Runs away from angry RP mob*  |
Some of you have 4 and 5 accounts with all of the booster packs and expansions. That alone has to be some really nice cash not even including subscription fees.
Keep giving people reasons to play and it profits them in the end.
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Whatever happened to getting non-arc/badge missions into Ouroboros?
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Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
Besides the fact that there are NUMEROUS things they've abandoned BEFORE power cust. I'd like them to tackle even ONE of those FIRST.
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It seems to me like they're spending a lot of time on things that make the game more like other MMORPG's and not as much on the things that make this game really special.
The beating heart and lifeblood of this game is that you can make up your own superhero from your imgination--like I used to do as a kid--but then you can run out into a world and actually PLAY him in a video game with other (and on this game mostly nice) people. HELL YEAH!
But there has been a lot of focus on endgame, and restrictive game lore, and crafting, and queing for raids, and gear, and other things that you have been seeing forever in other MMORPG's and that we didn't have or need at first when the game started.
Now, I don't MIND the addition of those other things, some of them are even good (:P), but they just make the game more like everything else out there. But the more they increase the ability to experience truly making your own hero with as few limits as possible, the more special the game will become.
I'm most interested in pool power customization, but more proliferation would be great too. Crafting and raiding and gear and lore-based expansions, well, they're ok, but WoW has that.
That said, thanks, devs, for making my childhood superhero fantasies come to life 
. Frikkin fun!
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Originally Posted by je_saist
Next Year.
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Hmmm...
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It's surprising to me how rarely that notion comes up, considering that's one of the game's greatest strengths by far. Sure, if you're an artist or filthy rich, you can take your imagination and commit it to artwork, film or game, but if you're just an average Joe, the best you can do with your imagination is... Well, imagine it. And then here's a game where you can build the super-cool characters you always dreamed about (often without knowing you were), give them form and actually play them in an actual game! From time to time, especially when I log in a particularly cool character of mine, I have to pinch myself, because it does not seem real that I could have my own moving, fighting action figures.|
Originally Posted by herotoonefan
The beating heart and lifeblood of this game is that you can make up your own superhero from your imgination--like I used to do as a kid--but then you can run out into a world and actually PLAY him in a video game with other (and on this game mostly nice) people. HELL YEAH!
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Power customization is a large part of that. I sincerely hope the rumours of that in I21 or I22 are true.
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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.
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Yep the lack of PP/APP customisation bugs me but the one case that bugged me the most was actually the other way around:
My man-about-town Emp/Dark defender who's concept was all about manipulating life force went undercover in the rogue isles for a number of reasons (not the least of which was to see if he could melt the cold heart of the Ghost Widow) and with the eventual upgrade to Soul Mastery it all seemed to fit very well (Rimshot!).
Except that I couldn't re-colour the dark powers white to (mostly) match soul mastery, a "Bright-soul mastery" using the additive shader would be _so_ nice and not without precedent (soul mastery is pretty much the dark power set, but white. Or what about "The Deadlights" from Steven Kings "It". Bright can be scary too)
Dark powers use a combination of additive and subtractive sprites, judging by the look of the powers, which is why they don't have separate bright and dark themes - either would look too different from the default. Not that I wouldn't want to see that
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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.
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Yeah, I hate the FX of Hasten more with each passing year. How about some crackling lightening, or.....anything else!|
Originally Posted by Flarstux
If not sooner.
I wonder who thought the effects of Hasten were best represented visually by fire. Perhaps this person was inspired by the archetypal old man shouting at some young person zipping by, "Hey, where's the fire?" Too bad powers like Repulsion Field don't make use of grass. That would be truly epic. |
This should have been finished within an issue. It is massively frustrating that it has not been.
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I don't think so Sam. I'm pretty sure it's all appliqué textures with alpha rather than additive or subtractive. Lets just say that my Dark powers have been a deep bloody red for a long time before power customisation came in.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Dark powers use a combination of additive and subtractive sprites, judging by the look of the powers, which is why they don't have separate bright and dark themes - either would look too different from the default. Not that I wouldn't want to see that
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So I was mucking about with the Incarnate Power Customization last night and it got me thinking. Incarnate power customization works by letting you recolor ALL of the Judgement and Destiny powers regardless of which ones you have. It seems to me that that would be a practical solution for at least some of the pool customization issues (such as what happens with dual builds). Simply allow a character to set customization for all power pools and all epic pools for their AT regardless of which ones they are actually using.
What a character looks like is irrelevant to game play. My first 50 (i3) still has his original costume, original weapon and original power colours. And you know what? he still plays the same as if he had changed it.
I'd really rather not have things changed, it's taken long enough to recognise all the different animations to all the powers and new colours. I want to be able to tell what powers ppl are using and when.
For powers everyone has (hasten, fly ect) they should all look the same this includes APPs and PPPs. In order to have a different hasten with different animations it should be called summat else (as basic as electro-hasten or summat)
Um, no, the rest of us aren't going to give up on making our characters look like we want to just so you can recognize our powers more easily. You can still tell, it's not that hard, and if you don't like it, tough, you can do what you want with your characters and we'll do what we want with ours.
Now, the Incarnate coloring demonstrates that the technology to do this now exists. The problem is that they devs would have to redo ALL of the special effects for these powers in order to add colorable versions. While I would guess that they will be getting to it sooner or later, it's fairly low on their list of priorities for right now.
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Why? Aside from a small handful of powers, mostly in defender primaries that already can be customised, what good does knowing the exact powers other players are using do you?
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Originally Posted by _gohan661_
I want to be able to tell what powers ppl are using and when.
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I'm talking about the custom Dark powers. All custom powers (or rather, all custom sprites) obey either an additive or subtractive model for transparency, and that's coming straight out of BABs when he was working on that. Most powersets got custom options which were either entirely additive or entirely subtractive, which is what the game calls "Bright" and "Dark" themes. I have no idea what Dark Melee/Armour/Miasma got, but I highly suspect it's a mix of both. I say this because the effects are almost invisible in pure black and almost invisible in pure white. Maybe THAT particular powerset uses something eccentric that differentiates it from all others, but my point was that it should have options which DON'T. I happen to want my dark powers to be a pure inky black, which current options draw very, very transparent and in turn very, very ugly.|
Originally Posted by Serva_Obscura
I don't think so Sam. I'm pretty sure it's all appliqué textures with alpha rather than additive or subtractive. Lets just say that my Dark powers have been a deep bloody red for a long time before power customisation came in.
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Originally Posted by _gohan661_
I'd really rather not have things changed, it's taken long enough to recognise all the different animations to all the powers and new colours. I want to be able to tell what powers ppl are using and when.
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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.
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So I know what powers they are or are not using. This adds to efficiency if there is a certain character in the group not using his/her powers efficiently i'll be able to tell. Why blame the bubble defender for the random KB that is slowing team when it's a kinetic controller running through the mob without a recognisable repel. there are many many variations on this.|
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Why? Aside from a small handful of powers, mostly in defender primaries that already can be customised, what good does knowing the exact powers other players are using do you?
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Are you happy to have an empath on team that has heals but does not use them? Happy to have a DA scrapper in team but only toggling half or a couple of powers? No it's not efficient and does not benefit the team.
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When you purchased the game you bought it knowing it did not have customisation yet you still bought it. After the fact is a little late to complain.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
And I want to be able to make my powers look like what I want to make them look like. That's the point of power customization, which already exists in the game. |
Yes under that logic the game should be reverted back to when it was purchased which for me was EU launch. And you know what if it did i wouldn't complain even tho about 7 of my 50s would disappear.
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Turn on icons in your team window. You've been playing the game long enough to be able to recognize most of those icons by glance -- or at least long enough to realize "Regen toggles are pale green" "kinetic icons are teal/blue" etc - you can see what they're using or not.|
Originally Posted by _gohan661_
So I know what powers they are or are not using. This adds to efficiency if there is a certain character in the group not using his/her powers efficiently i'll be able to tell. Why blame the bubble defender for the random KB that is slowing team when it's a kinetic controller running through the mob without a recognisable repel. there are many many variations on this.
Are you happy to have an empath on team that has heals but does not use them? Happy to have a DA scrapper in team but only toggling half or a couple of powers? No it's not efficient and does not benefit the team. |
If you really, really, really care about whether other people are active, or doing something stupid, WATCH THEM...even before power customization, this is what you had to do most of the time...the game is full of crazy power effects and pretty much always has been (though it's getting crazier since incarnates).
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Originally Posted by _gohan661_
When you purchased the game you bought it knowing it did not have customisation yet you still bought it. After the fact is a little late to complain.
Yes under that logic the game should be reverted back to when it was purchased which for me was EU launch. And you know what if it did i wouldn't complain even tho about 7 of my 50s would disappear. |
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Originally Posted by Dispari
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.
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If you're spending so much effort watching just to see whether your teammates are using the powers "properly", it sounds like the real weak link in the efficiency chain might lay somewhere else...
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Originally Posted by _gohan661_
So I know what powers they are or are not using. This adds to efficiency if there is a certain character in the group not using his/her powers efficiently i'll be able to tell. Why blame the bubble defender for the random KB that is slowing team when it's a kinetic controller running through the mob without a recognisable repel. there are many many variations on this.
Are you happy to have an empath on team that has heals but does not use them? Happy to have a DA scrapper in team but only toggling half or a couple of powers? No it's not efficient and does not benefit the team. |
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That argument became invalid the moment power customization was introduced into the game. That argument was, as a point of fact, never valid, because customization has been one of the game's strongest selling points since day 1. Furthermore, your argument is "I don't want this." which isn't an argument, in that the only retort even possible to it is "I do want it."|
Originally Posted by _gohan661_
When you purchased the game you bought it knowing it did not have customisation yet you still bought it. After the fact is a little late to complain.
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As to confusing powers by appearance, powers still retain their visual effects even with customization. Dark powers remain dense and fluffy, Energy Blasts retain their Kirby dots and sound effects, Energy Melee powers retain their "pom poms of doom" albeit in another colour. If you have encyclopaedic knowledge of the game enough to tell what every power in the game does at a glance, you should be able to tell what a power is by the sound effect it uses and by the visual effect shape. Failing that, nothing's stopping you from opening you team-mates' Info windows and verifying what powers they've taken.
If you're talking about a moment-to-moment appraisal of what each person is using, then I contest that this is not and has never been relevant. It makes no difference whether your team-mate just used Hasten, Build Up, Aim, Power Build Up, Domination, any inspiration or one of the myriad of other powers that use that animation. Such precise teaming precision is never necessary even in very organisation-heavy environments such as the Sewers Trial. About the only real need to know what powers other people are using comes in relation to "anchored toggle debuffs," where you need to be able to identify which enemy serves as the anchor so as not to accidentally shut down your team-mate's debuff. It may be only very occasionally relevant to know where team-mates have summoned location-based debuffs such as Tar Patch or Oil Slick so as to draw enemies into them, but unless those are cast ahead of time to pull into, drawing enemies into patches mid-fight is rarely relevant given the lifespan of these patches and the pace of combat.
"Because I say so" arguments only work when you're arguing a self-evident point that doesn't infringe on what has proven to be a very popular request which has existed for the full seven years I've been with this game. Once you begin to argue that people shouldn't have the things they've been asking for years and years, you need something more than throwing your weight around. Literally the ONLY response your "argument" leaves for is "NO U!" because you have deliberately left room for nothing else.
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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.
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Don't blame your shortcomings on other players. The Empath or Scrapper, aside simply being possibly bad/inexperienced players, have nothing to do with this weak argument of yours.|
Originally Posted by _gohan661_
So I know what powers they are or are not using. This adds to efficiency if there is a certain character in the group not using his/her powers efficiently i'll be able to tell. Why blame the bubble defender for the random KB that is slowing team when it's a kinetic controller running through the mob without a recognisable repel. there are many many variations on this.
Are you happy to have an empath on team that has heals but does not use them? Happy to have a DA scrapper in team but only toggling half or a couple of powers? No it's not efficient and does not benefit the team. |
I also recommend learning how to build a proper argument.
Samuel, I do realise that most powers have the original animations but more and more ppl are asking for more and more changes. It is this I do not want. Yes I can tell the difference from a blue RA to a green RA but it was easier before.
Aggle yes i do use the icon window and i do reconise the different icons but i am not always looking there and they are so small i'd much prefer to see the tank who just used whirlwind using the animation i know than some random animation (this is not in the game yet) that looks nothing like it but still does same thing. So i can kick him :P
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So, wait, you're trying to close the barn door after all the horses except a couple ponies have left?|
Originally Posted by _gohan661_
Samuel, I do realise that most powers have the original animations but more and more ppl are asking for more and more changes. It is this I do not want. Yes I can tell the difference from a blue RA to a green RA but it was easier before.
Aggle yes i do use the icon window and i do reconise the different icons but i am not always looking there and they are so small i'd much prefer to see the tank who just used whirlwind using the animation i know than some random animation (this is not in the game yet) that looks nothing like it but still does same thing. So i can kick him :P |
Your argument against making the power pools customizable is absurd. Hasten only affects the user, and is difficult to make perma. Whyinahell you would feel that you need to keep track of how often a teammate activates Hasten? Hasten (and Superspeed) aside most of the other pool powers have effects that are subtle enough that it's hard to mark them at a glance anyway. Since almost all primary and secondary powerset effects can already be tinted or hidden i can only assume your position against the far less essential and powerful pool powers being made customizable is some sort of petty dog in the manger vindictive attempt to preserve some last shred of the former status quo. "Well, i didn't get what i wanted with everything else, but i demand this last bit be left as it already is because i can't roll back the rest of the game."
Edit: Incidentally, you do realize that players using tinted buffs mean it's easier to tell which player has recently applied a buff when more than one teammate has the same powerset, yes?
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If you're willing to kick someone simply because they dared to customize their powers, I think you will swiftly find yourself in that place where 1-starred and /ignored people go.
Of course, hopefully I'm reading that wrong, your posts are rather hard to follow.
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Sorry yes that is not what i meant at all. If a tank taunts a mob and as they reach him he turns on whirlwind then thats why i'd kick him not for power customisation |
Originally Posted by The_Overlord
If you're willing to kick someone simply because they dared to customize their powers, I think you will swiftly find yourself in that place where 1-starred and /ignored people go.
Of course, hopefully I'm reading that wrong, your posts are rather hard to follow. |
Besides the fact that there are NUMEROUS things they've abandoned BEFORE power cust. I'd like them to tackle even ONE of those FIRST.
It's also why I don't take their comments of "we'll get to solo incarnate content" later seriously. They abandon so many things half way.
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