Suggestion: Allow players to select their buff-shield effect(s)

While not inspired by this thread: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...96#post3724896

I figured I'd hammer this out while I was thinking about it.

Shortly after Null-the-Gull was announced on Ustream one of the global channels I was in had a... discussion... okay it was mostly a bunch of yelling back and forth... about whether or not Null-the-Gull should be expanded to cover other portions of game-play.

One of the ideas tossed about was disabling the animation of costume-buff shields such as, but not limited to, Force Fields, Thermal Shields, Cold Shields, and Sonic Shields. The conceptual idea behind the disabling of shield animation is based on a couple of factors:

• some shields are considered to be ugly
• some shields hide the costume

Given that importance placed upon a players costume, and the visual appeal of the costume, I can see the logic behind asking that buff-shield animations be disabled.

One of the problems with the suggestion is that it would set another precedent for allowing native-armor types to do away with their visual representations of their shields. There are loads of players who want to play a set for what it does... but don't because they don't like how it looks. Ice Armor and Dark Armor come to mind.

Given that simply disabling animations isn't likely... I'd like to propose a different solution comprised of two parts:

• Allow Players to select and customize the Buff-Shield Effect through Icon
• Create brand new shield animation affects

In other news the UI developers and engine coders have now decided that everytime I log in, a Seed of Hamidon is to hunt me down. Nobel Savage and Tunnel Rat got together and created new pink tutu to put every single one of my avatars in.

Okay, the logic behind these suggestion... I think is simple.

Allowing players to customize the appearance of a buff-shield, before that shield is received, would help players ensure that the shield effect does not interfere with their costume appearance. Go ahead, buff that complicated costume design with an ice shield... the buffer's choice of color won't matter.

Expanding the number of available options to represent a buff-shield, or armor-shield for that matter, would also give players more flexibility. I was going to say give the Force Field bubbles the option to use the Invulnerability-Unyielding animation as an option... but that animation is associated with anti-mez and resistance rather than a defensive power...

Anyways, I think expanding the costume options and giving players more control over how those options are exposed to each players avatar would be a better long-term solution for the game.

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I *want* to say it was Tunnel Rat who said they might - longer term - look into enabling a way to disable or change powers client-side, specifically because of things like Barrier and the old Sonic shields having a physical effect on the players as well as the "These are ugly" complaints.

Edit: Here we are.

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I'm not really for it.

You're being shielded with fire! You should be covered in fire. If it distracts from your costume, then ask not to be shielded.

That said, I'll say it again, give us new animations for the shields.

The original competition has awesome effects for Ice Armor and Fire Armor, which would be awesome to have here.

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BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection

Only it's impossible to ask to not be shielded now.

It's a giant AoE buff. We're stuck with it now no matter what. Now, more than ever there should be an option to drop a buff on us.

I'd be in favor of this option even if it meant dropping the buff numbers as well. I can't stand Ice Shields and I will go out of my way not to get that ugly, annoying, distracting shield.

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"The Hollows was a cover up; it was really caused by Blue Steel experimenting with Foot Stomp." - Steelclaw

<-- boy

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BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection

Isn't it currently possible to turn on "Suppress VFX When Close" and then change the value of "close" to something pretty far out? I thought people already did this for performance reasons (as well as people who have a few powers with really ugly VFX).

Having a more granular and non-hacky "what do I render" menu would be great, though. "I do / do not want to see" and then like, shields, as an example. Perhaps even "on myself" and "on others". Some people might like VFX on themselves, but turn it off for others because they don't buff others and don't want their graphics card to bother rendering them; others might like it off on themselves because they like to admire their own costume, but don't care what others look like and have plenty of GPU power.

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It really only applies in trials, but you know what? I want to turn off every power effect that doesn't belong to me or the NPCs. Heck, I'd even turn off my own.

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"The Hollows was a cover up; it was really caused by Blue Steel experimenting with Foot Stomp." - Steelclaw

<-- boy

I would love for NtG to have an option to force a client defaulting to ALL power custom colors. I remember teaming with a friend on her pink dark fender, and it basically brought my pc to a standstill. She swapped to a different color, problem was GONE. Instantly!

When stupid Ultra Mode hit, even though I had ZERO UM options on, the game became suddenly unp[layed on my pc. Now, I know people will say..Time to get a new PC. And it was, so I did. Point is, having zero of the new shiny option on, why did it make a difference? Same with custom power colors, Id love to go back to no power color changes for a day and see what difference it made to peoples lag.

Not to mention..I am sure we have all joined a team where some twit thinks his bight green with pink spots sonic dispersion bubble is the epitome of style..yet it gives everyone else a splitting headache!

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BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection

If you're suggesting that you can change how external buffs look on your client, then I'm ok with it, but you already know how your costume looks like, so devs could instead spend their time on something more meaningful.

However, if you're suggesting changing how buffs look for everyone, so that even the buffer sees his force bubbles, shields. etc the colour other ppl picked them to be, then no, just NO. It's unacceptable allowing other players to determine how your powers work or look, especially when you're a buffer and you can't know whether your shields expired or not, since each and every teammate of yours is buffed with a different coloured shield, a different animation or none at all.

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I like the suggestion. I have no idea how difficult it would be to implement, but from the UI perspective, it would be simple as hell to present.

Each buff or effect has its own icon in the status bar. Consequently, in addition to the "Hide autopowers" and... whatever other options you get when you right-click buffsettings icons, add a "Hide visual effects from this power" option to it.

Of course, considering PS' track record with UI changes and improvements, I won't hold my breath. {bitter? me? naaaw!}

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