Could we please get these costume pieces moved from dev only?

[DR_Mechano]

As the title says there are currently costume pieces that work absolutely fine that are only accessible with the -n option. I've compiled a picture with:

1) Far Left: The Athletics Tights option. Basically a more muscular version of tights but not quite to the level of the Bodysuit option, a bit more subtle.

2)The Middle: The tights texture is only referred to as 'Ladybot' and is available as an option for Face, gloves (not featured here), Legs and Chest, it is currently missing boots (that I could swear I could find before). The Gloves are the Robo-victoria gloves used by the MkIV Victoria Warwork bosses. Yes they may look funny with some powersets and emotes BUT so do a lot of costume pieces.

3)The last one is the Lamatsu chest detail and belt, yes it's for an AV but the rest of the AVs design is not unique, it only features in one story arc and is otherwise unremarkable.

[Rathulfr]

She thicc tho.

[NNDeepdish]

Oh those are cool!

[Galaxy Brain]

1 hour ago, Rathulfr said:

She thicc tho.

[DR_Mechano]

Yush she is Thicc, I got to draw people in somehow 😄

[Sakura Tenshi]

I'd love so many things from the NPC only section of icon (which, I can't access anymore, how do I unlock it again?)

 

But I do recall hearing some of these costume pieces can cause crashes in the game proper, on top of that there might be some reluctance due to a hefty dose of 'high gender gate' in NPC costumes which we can even see now. (notice only women have glowing yakuza tattoos, even though there's dudes with it in Dark Astoria's Tsoo)

 

[Bossk_Hogg]

3 hours ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

I'd love so many things from the NPC only section of icon (which, I can't access anymore, how do I unlock it again?)

 

But I do recall hearing some of these costume pieces can cause crashes in the game proper, on top of that there might be some reluctance due to a hefty dose of 'high gender gate' in NPC costumes which we can even see now. (notice only women have glowing yakuza tattoos, even though there's dudes with it in Dark Astoria's Tsoo)

 

To access the NPC parts, go into Options, and in the Settings Launch Parameters, type "-n". Close Tequila, then re-open it and run That will let you access them. 

 

The original devs frequently lied to us about plenty of stuff. Like how arachnos costume parts were all forcibly linked, when at minimum the widow parts are all individual ones that you can mix and match with regular parts. Or how mastermind customization was "impossible" when some random guy on reddit figured out how to set their own costumes for them. 

 

For the most part, these pieces are ready to go, so I dont know why we cant get them. Not all are finished, and there are some issues with a few, but the majority could be released now. They've been released on other servers as well.

 

I REALLY want the corrupted seer head for a psi blaster. They can stick it under the monstrous options (with and without tentacles) and its ready to roll.

 

[Communistpenguin]

Id like antlers for my plant controller

[Sakura Tenshi]

Thanks, bossk, also, damn I want the antlers so freaking much.

 

Also, the 'across the body' sashes.

[Noyjitat]

Im still in high hopes we get all the costume parts we had in titan icon npc mode as well as others someday. The ones you mentioned were part of that too. 

One of my characters needs penelope yins top, one needs bellas hair, another needs victoria blades, my widow needs vanguard claws and i need penelope yins head detail and leggings on another. 

[DR_Mechano]

3 hours ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Or how mastermind customization was "impossible" when some random guy on reddit figured out how to set their own costumes for them.

Do you have access to that reddit post by any chance, I can't seem to find it, would be cool.

 

So they question becomes, why HAVEN'T these costume pieces been released for the live server? I mean if I could get one of our dev team in here to answer that'd be great, it seems like it would be a fairly simple job especially for the ones in my original post, they're already fully customizable with regards to colour and don't cause major clipping issues. As others have mentioned, they've been released on the Issue 24 servers so why don't we have them here?

Edited January 24, 2020 by DR_Mechano

[Bossk_Hogg]

17 hours ago, DR_Mechano said:

Do you have access to that reddit post by any chance, I can't seem to find it, would be cool.

 

Trying to find it, but maybe it was deleted. Its linked to COXG, who had new costumes for the mercs among others. It looked similar to how I suspect the Phantom Army changes are implemented, where each pet pulls from one of your costume slots. 

 

 

[DR_Mechano]

Still I might have to PM one of the devs to see if I can get a response, who knows. I do remember seeing that one of the i24 servers had implemented model swapping for MMs somewhere in the back of my mind. I remember seeing that Bots could switch to Council/5th Column Mekmen and Malta Titans as options (would love to get me some Malta titans, especially since The boss Titan and the Assault Bot have all the same attacks (apart from flamethrower). 

[Jimmy]

This gets asked a lot, and there's a lot of considerations when it comes to adding things to the editor, but most importantly of all: Does adding it meet the quality bar, and can it be added without compromising another part of the game?

 

Many NPC pieces are simply not built to be used in the normal editor. They are frequently anchored to the wrong location (eg: a back piece in the belt slot) on the body or the actual mesh doesn't line up with the standard character model, and often do not recolour properly (if at all). On top of that, there are many pieces that are tied to signature NPCs (eg: Neuron's arms, or Manticore's hat... thing) which will not be added to the editor for that reason.

 

There certainly are some pieces that don't break these rules and some have actually been added already - but the vast majority simply aren't up to scratch with a ton of work being put in to updating them. With that being said, there are definitely more pieces that tick the necessary boxes and we would like to look at enabling more of them in the future - but we actually want to put the time into doing it right instead of just mass-enabling stuff and hoping for the best, and as you can imagine we've got a lot on our plate right now so there's no ETA on when this may happen.

On 1/23/2020 at 10:45 PM, Bossk_Hogg said:

The original devs frequently lied to us about plenty of stuff. Like how arachnos costume parts were all forcibly linked, when at minimum the widow parts are all individual ones that you can mix and match with regular parts. Or how mastermind customization was "impossible" when some random guy on reddit figured out how to set their own costumes for them. 

Lied is a strong word, and I don't think it's a fair characterisation.

 

Someone on reddit figured out a proof-of-concept of how it could work, but there's a huge amount of work between that and something that's production ready for a server that actually has a large amount of players on it. Not saying it won't happen, just that it's nowhere near as simple as hacking it in and making it just about work in a local dev environment - and again, there's a lot on our plate and we have to prioritise.

[VileTerror]

"Without compromising another part of the game" is an entirely fair metric; no argument there!

But "meet the quality bar" is a much more nebulous matter of opinion, frankly.  This game is already graphically held together by duct tape in quite a few places, and while people may complain, I've yet to see it seriously impact players enough to have them storm off with ultimatums about visual fidelity.
Creativity and customization have always been the greatest strengths of City of Heroes.  I think we need to be ready to loosen the grip on matters where "quality" is holding back levels of customization of this magnitude.  People will make eye sores; they already do.  But more than that, players will make remarkable works of creative ingenuity which make any eyesore well worth it.  

 

The positives, as far as I can fathom, FAR outweigh any potential downsides here when it's a question of "quality."

[Bossk_Hogg]

Frankly, the only person who should decide if the piece looks good is the person playing the character. I see so many bland and lame costumes as is, so what's a little clipping with some combos? Its not like capes would pass the arbitrary metric you all seem to be using, and just because a piece doesnt work with some options isnt a good reason to not let it be used. 

 

This seems like a hell of a lot easier than rebalancing the entire game, given that it took us almost 5 months to remove bruising and give tankers a 15% damage upgrade. Look at the pieces posted in this thread for example. There's no QA issue, so how much work could it be to remove the NPC only flag?

 

Also, pieces being a "npc"s are a poor reason to keep them exclusive. The NPC is a mindless bunch of code. It doesnt deserve preferential treatment over an actual person who wants to realize their concept with a piece they use...

Edited January 25, 2020 by Bossk_Hogg

[VileTerror]

Yeah, there you go.  Capes are a great metric for quality.  If it looks as good as a cape does, clipping through my legs and torso at random, then add it!

[Replacement]

I like the Cape metric... but a lot of these parts aren't just "clipping."  They have holes, where they aren't cut along the normal lines and you just see through your character.  

 

I'm also not terribly keen on the "unique character" part?  I get it, especially stuff like... Ms. Liberty's sword.  I can understand.  But I also feel like we'd put them to good use elsewhere.  The Lamashtu example is actually a perfect one -- this character appears in a single questline in First Ward, and they aren't exactly memorable.  Those costume pieces also happen to function quite well, at least in the NPC editor.

 

Another good example is Mirror Spirit.  This is a really minor character to have what appears to be a unique everything.  I'd rather have these pieces than, say, all the Freakshow arms (which technically meet @Jimmy's laid out criteria).

[DR_Mechano]

40 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

This gets asked a lot, and there's a lot of considerations when it comes to adding things to the editor, but most importantly of all: Does adding it meet the quality bar, and can it be added without compromising another part of the game?

 

Many NPC pieces are simply not built to be used in the normal editor. They are frequently anchored to the wrong location (eg: a back piece in the belt slot) on the body or the actual mesh doesn't line up with the standard character model, and often do not recolour properly (if at all). On top of that, there are many pieces that are tied to signature NPCs (eg: Neuron's arms, or Manticore's hat... thing) which will not be added to the editor for that reason.

 

There certainly are some pieces that don't break these rules and some have actually been added already - but the vast majority simply aren't up to scratch with a ton of work being put in to updating them. With that being said, there are definitely more pieces that tick the necessary boxes and we would like to look at enabling more of them in the future - but we actually want to put the time into doing it right instead of just mass-enabling stuff and hoping for the best, and as you can imagine we've got a lot on our plate right now so there's no ETA on when this may happen.

Lied is a strong word, and I don't think it's a fair characterisation.

Going to have to agree somewhat with Bossk_Hogg and Vileterror here. There are plenty of examples that don't break those rules. The pieces I included in my examples are all anchored correctly, already fully customizable, they're all ready to go they honestly just need the dev only tag removing. I'm talking about the specific pieces in the pictures. This being the Athletic Tights option, the Ladybot tights and face option (which isn't used by Nightstar, that is a seperate set of pieces) and the Robo-victoria gloves which aren't AV exclusive, they're used by boss level Warworks NPCs. The Lamatsu Chest piece and Belt aren't tied to a 'signature NPC', its in one arc for like 3 missions.

 

The only piece that may be problematic is the Robo-victoria gloves just because it will clip with various emotes but so do Capes. I, agree with what has been said here, this idea of 'quality' is rather silly in my opinion. If something works and looks fine.

 

I get your busy but you recently noted that more costume options was like the number 1 demand from the community. If pieces that don't clip, that are already not wonky in any way (no bad anchor points, no holes in them, already in the correct places, like the above examples) then I honestly don't see what the hold up is.

 

If other servers can implement them without much issue I really can't understand why Homecoming is being so...reserved...when it comes to NPC pieces.

Edited January 25, 2020 by DR_Mechano

[Replacement]

Good example picture for why "it's just clipping" isn't the full story.  Silver Mantis looks great.  Desdemona's pants, on the other hand, require Desdemona's top to even function:

(and there are a lot of pieces like this)

 

[DR_Mechano]

I'm not asking for THOSE pieces I'm pointing out that there are pieces literally ready to go, that are in the correct categories, that are fully function with no clipping or wonky model warping in sight. The three I listed in the picture are completely functional without any sort of problem.

[Jimmy]

6 minutes ago, DR_Mechano said:

I'm not asking for THOSE pieces I'm pointing out that there are pieces literally ready to go, that are in the correct categories, that are fully function with no clipping or wonky model warping in sight. The three I listed in the picture are completely functional without any sort of problem.

 

51 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

With that being said, there are definitely more pieces that tick the necessary boxes and we would like to look at enabling more of them in the future - but we actually want to put the time into doing it right instead of just mass-enabling stuff and hoping for the best, and as you can imagine we've got a lot on our plate right now so there's no ETA on when this may happen.

 

[Replacement]

Yeah, and I absolutely agree with you there.  I think something Jimmy is alluding to though... I don't think even then it's as easy as flipping the flag to "player selectable" without issues popping up.  I don't even know if this game loads NPCs and PCs the same way.  Obviously, I am a fan of enabling all the easy ones if such things exist.

 

I am not keen on this "unique NPC" rule.  I could make an exception for basically everyone related to the Well of Furies but... that's about it.

 

EDIT: EGG ON MY FACE!  Thanks, Jimmy. 😄 

 

Edited January 25, 2020 by Replacement

[Sakura Tenshi]

Totally random on the note of of uniques to NPCs: I really freaking hate that Talons of Vengeance have copies of scirocco's sword. Bugs me that weapon that's both signature to scirocco and has exspress lore related to what it is... Is apparently standard issue to any ToV snekgurl.

 

[VileTerror]

I know my earlier post didn't really touch on it, but I do appreciate the immense work that the Homecoming Team is doing.  If they don't have the time right now to implement this without potential breakage of spaghetti, then they don't have the time.  I would -like- an E.T.A., but I won't demand it or anything.  They have lives and responsibilities.   ... would be nice to expand the Team, though, to get more projects underway simultaneously . . . ANYWAY!

 

My first post in this thread was addressing the "quality" line of rhetoric in particular, though.  Using that as a reason for not doing it just doesn't fly for me, and I feel it is important to address that.