Power Customization - Low Hanging Fruit

[Leogunner]

Post some suggestions for power customization you feel are easy (i.e. knock em out in bulk in an "afternoon") and discuss.  Maybe what you thought was relatively easy is actually complicated due to past clarification.

 

Some of mine:

 

Spines: No Body Spines.  Basically, just taking the Claws stance for the animations but having the spines on the hands...or better yet, having the option of just claws animations but spines effects.

 

Claws: Body Spines.  The reverse of the above for costume purposes.

 

Incarnate ability Vorpal Judgement: Weapon.  Just swing your weapon instead of the spin kick.  You don't even have to change the particle effects...or you could just remove the incorporeal forms and just have a "smack" effect on all foes hit.

 

I can't think of any others off the top of my head. 

[Galaxy Brain]

Apply Spines customization options to /Plant and /Thorn where possible.

[summers]

NoFX options for Blaster sustains

NoFX options for Scorpion Shield

NoFX options for most things really 🙂

[Haijinx]

Stalkers could use some alternate animations for the quick portion of assassins strike. 

 

For example Stalker SJ is basically Uppercut Melee.  Maybe sub the Blaster Storm Kick or SJ Rib Cracker animation there.

 

For a lot of the old non-weapon sets, both choices are terrible.  So some variants there would be nice

 

[dangeraaron10]

An option for Fire Sword, Greater Fire Sword, and Fire Sword Circle to have "Fiery Claw", to replace the swords with Savage Melee animations so that it's still very obviously Lethal damage in combination with Fire, but lets you ditch the swords for more theme variety.

[Lines]

I'd like it if the medicine pool has a less 'devicey' option. Something distinct from empathy, but could be suited for magical or less technological powers.

[Chris24601]

Cross-promotion with my thread on Kheld-forms;

 

I’d like the option to not change into a squid or lobster when you enter the form, just switch to those abilities and maybe pick up a default Kheld glowie aura. As someone in that thread mentioned, the form powers already have animations tied to them in the power customization window so there’s not even work needed for that.

 

The reason for this is entirely that I want to see the costume I put all that work into designing without needing to create a relatively gimped human-only build.

[Alchemystic]

what I'd  like to see most of all is Psi Melee/Force of Will FX and animation for other psionic sets, give them the same modernisation as the Dark sets got!

 

Other than that, maybe Force Field FX for Energy Aura and Nature Affinity FX for Plant Control?

 

Oh, and we absolutely must have the unique Talons Siren FX for sonic sets and/or mind control!

 

 

[Darkneblade]

All accolade powers basically. For example on villain accolade ''megalomaniac'' it gives rainbow aura this doesn't make sense. Either customizing color or no fx options good for accolades.

Edited January 24, 2020 by Darkneblade

[Menelruin]

6 hours ago, dangeraaron10 said:

An option for Fire Sword, Greater Fire Sword, and Fire Sword Circle to have "Fiery Claw", to replace the swords with Savage Melee animations so that it's still very obviously Lethal damage in combination with Fire, but lets you ditch the swords for more theme variety.

Flip side to this, have them ALL include an elemental sword, if that's your schtick.

[Leogunner]

11 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Apply Spines customization options to /Plant and /Thorn where possible.

That's not already the case? 

 

11 hours ago, summers said:

NoFX options for Blaster sustains

NoFX options for Scorpion Shield

NoFX options for most things really 🙂

Sure. Sounds simple enough. 

 

10 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Stalkers could use some alternate animations for the quick portion of assassins strike. 

 

For example Stalker SJ is basically Uppercut Melee.  Maybe sub the Blaster Storm Kick or SJ Rib Cracker animation there.

 

For a lot of the old non-weapon sets, both choices are terrible.  So some variants there would be nice

 

That probably isn't simple. That's making me animations probably. 

 

9 hours ago, dangeraaron10 said:

An option for Fire Sword, Greater Fire Sword, and Fire Sword Circle to have "Fiery Claw", to replace the swords with Savage Melee animations so that it's still very obviously Lethal damage in combination with Fire, but lets you ditch the swords for more theme variety.

Do the animation times match? If they don't, it'll probably be a not-simple addition. 

 

... In fact, a lot of the suggestions seem to be asking for new animations except the no FX for accolade powers. 

[Menelruin]

Change the colors on Granite Armor.

Remove the green trails from Spines.

 

Also, this is sorta midway between costume and power customization, but....

 

There are these nifty rocket boots in the customizer that shoot jets of blue flame out whenever a Flight power is active, and it's awesome.....but I can't seem to recolor the flame jets, either by adjusting my costume, OR the Flight powers.

[Bossk_Hogg]

I'd like broadsword to get the fire sword, greater fire sword, ice sword and greater ice sword options. They are in dual blades, so its pretty weird they're not in broadsword. BS has other elemental weapons, but not these models.

 

Really, let us use any of the one hander weapons in any one hander set (and mix with dual blades). So you could use a sword skin in the warmace set, or dual wield a pipewrench and hatchet.

 

I'd also like to see both non-sword options for fire/ice sword attacks, and adding the ice/fire sword to non-fire sword attacks. It's just something in your character's hand, and you can see the animations work fine in Icon. You can see how they play out with an invisible sword too.

Edited January 24, 2020 by Bossk_Hogg

[Alchemystic]

I was also thinking a Minimal FX version of Fiery Aura and Ice Armor.

 

Maybe a sort of faint heat glow for fire, and a slight chilling vapor for ice.

[aethereal]

I'm not super into minimal FX for everything.  The core logic and concepts of CoH is that specific power types do certain things better.  Fire blast isn't "DoT blast," it's fire blast.

 

Some things make a lot of sense to have minimal FX, like yes, you should be able to have SR characters who don't glow, that's intended to be a powerset that could represent just being exceptionally good at dodging.  And some power FX seems like it's...  just UI, not IC?  Like that weird circle of lines that goes around you with one of the invul toggles.

 

But I don't really want it to be the case that you can have fire armor and not have it look like fire armor, or there are claws-that-are-really-spines and spines-that-are-really-claws.

[Aracknight]

Link Mace Mastery PPP powers to the Crab spider Backpack costume option! 

 

So your mace blast, web envelope, etc come out of your mechanical extra arms.  :P 

 

Alternatively, get rid of the Mace in Mace Mastery PPP so blasts and webs come out of your hands/fists like in Energy Blast or whatever.  I feel like this could be done by accident like how Sentinel Katanas/Ninja Swords are invisible.

 

Or, you know, both.  It's cool.

[Haijinx]

1 hour ago, Leogunner said:

That's not already the case? 

 

Sure. Sounds simple enough. 

 

That probably isn't simple. That's making me animations probably. 

 

Do the animation times match? If they don't, it'll probably be a not-simple addition. 

 

... In fact, a lot of the suggestions seem to be asking for new animations except the no FX for accolade powers. 

I was going from memory as I was/am on my phone but I was pretty sure in at least one case the animation times for quick AS  was the same as Blaster SK at 1.32 (SJ has a fairly slow AS)

[Sura]

14 hours ago, summers said:

NoFX options for Blaster sustains

NoFX options for Scorpion Shield

NoFX options for most things really 🙂

This.  NoFX and no redraw should be first on the list for any applicable powers.

[Leogunner]

3 hours ago, Menelruin said:

Change the colors on Granite Armor.

Remove the green trails from Spines.

 

Also, this is sorta midway between costume and power customization, but....

 

There are these nifty rocket boots in the customizer that shoot jets of blue flame out whenever a Flight power is active, and it's awesome.....but I can't seem to recolor the flame jets, either by adjusting my costume, OR the Flight powers.

Either that or being able to color the toxic trails of Spines.

 

The rocket boots though, I think it might have something to do with the UI and not having enough separate channels to customize those aspects.  I can't remember off the top of my head but there are other costume parts that have glowing effects I wish I could color but can't.  It's annoying.

 

3 hours ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

I'd like broadsword to get the fire sword, greater fire sword, ice sword and greater ice sword options. They are in dual blades, so its pretty weird they're not in broadsword. BS has other elemental weapons, but not these models.

 

Really, let us use any of the one hander weapons in any one hander set (and mix with dual blades). So you could use a sword skin in the warmace set, or dual wield a pipewrench and hatchet.

 

I'd also like to see both non-sword options for fire/ice sword attacks, and adding the ice/fire sword to non-fire sword attacks. It's just something in your character's hand, and you can see the animations work fine in Icon. You can see how they play out with an invisible sword too.

Definitely need the elemental sword options for broadsword and katana if applicable.

 

As for the sword/non-sword options for fire and ice, I remember a dev saying they'd like to work on that.  Probably not low-hanging fruit though.  I'd gather it requires some new animations.

 

2 hours ago, Tyrannical said:

I was also thinking a Minimal FX version of Fiery Aura and Ice Armor.

 

Maybe a sort of faint heat glow for fire, and a slight chilling vapor for ice.

Ice Armor already has a min FX option.  I use it on my Psi/Ice stalker.  Although, using Energy Absorption does create a more "icy clustering" effect when used.

 

2 hours ago, aethereal said:

I'm not super into minimal FX for everything.  The core logic and concepts of CoH is that specific power types do certain things better.  Fire blast isn't "DoT blast," it's fire blast.

 

Some things make a lot of sense to have minimal FX, like yes, you should be able to have SR characters who don't glow, that's intended to be a powerset that could represent just being exceptionally good at dodging.  And some power FX seems like it's...  just UI, not IC?  Like that weird circle of lines that goes around you with one of the invul toggles.

 

But I don't really want it to be the case that you can have fire armor and not have it look like fire armor, or there are claws-that-are-really-spines and spines-that-are-really-claws.

It depends what you're trying to customize the character to be.

 

For example, the reason I want a no-body-spines option is because there is no "ninja throwing weapon" type set that isn't also bogged down by a whole control primary powerset.  I tried making the guy Dark/Martial dom but there are just too many "non-knife" powers and claws' "shockwave" effects don't lend well to the concept either.  I made him a Spines/Dark stalker on Live and remade him again the same because it works best....but he's not spewing spines from his body, he's throwing knives.

 

Now I could ask for a special "throwing knives" melee or blast set...or just shut off the body spines and it's perfect....Spine Burst's animation might look a bit weird but it's better than nothing.  [EDIT] Also, Claws and Spines technically use the same looking stance, it's just one has spines that are customized per-power and Claws is a weapon.

 

As for having claws with spines, that's just pure aesthetics.  Some of the hand spines available for the spines set look quite gruesome and I bet a lot of players would enjoy having them as options for their claws melees.

 

The fire armor min FX suggestion I can kind of follow you but if I wanted a character that used "heat" as an armor, I can combine another set with the fire aura options too.

 

 

Edited January 24, 2020 by Leogunner

[Haijinx]

Fire could be thematically no f/x. Just say its glows brightly in Infrared.   

 

So could Rad its not like you can see gamma rays / xrays. 

 

Edit - it looks like Leo just mentioned the heat bit.

Edited January 24, 2020 by Haijinx

[aethereal]

32 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

 

 

As for having claws with spines, that's just pure aesthetics.  Some of the hand spines available for the spines set look quite gruesome and I bet a lot of players would enjoy having them as options for their claws melees.

 

The fire armor min FX suggestion I can kind of follow you but if I wanted a character that used "heat" as an armor, I can combine another set with the fire aura options too.

 

 

I'm fine with, like, an alternate fire armor set in the vein of Soul Noir -- that is, a very different fx that is none-the-less thematic for fiery aura.  And yeah, I guess spines-without-the-hand-spines doesn't upset me, but I don't like spines-with-only-the-hand-claws.  I'm just saying that I don't want the fx and the numbers to become wholly disconnected from each other.  It shouldn't be "you can use the sonic blast numbers with the energy blast fx."  That's doesn't seem to be what you're specifically arguing for, but I do see a lot of people who say like "nofx options for most things really."

[biostem]

12 hours ago, Lines said:

I'd like it if the medicine pool has a less 'devicey' option. Something distinct from empathy, but could be suited for magical or less technological powers.

You could have the user hold a gem the size of the medicine device, or perhaps a magic tome/crystal skull/some other magic object.

 

I'd love to see all psi-blade or all psi-fist options for psi melee.

 

I'd like to see some of the elemental weapon models made available to the relevant fire & ice melee attacks.

 

I'd like to see all beam rifle or assault rifle models shared among those sets.

 

I'd like to see some sort of ethereal/psi/ghostly weapon models added for pistols & rifles.

 

Not so much a power customization option per se, but I'd love to see some or all of the shield models ported over as back options.

[ShardWarrior]

Porting the Storm Kick animation from Martial Combat to Martial Arts and vice versa.

[VileTerror]

What harm do you feel it would do to decouple effects from numbers, though, @aethereal?
With the exclusion of PvP, where the option already exists to force specific Generic Customization, and with the ability to check other players' Powers in PvE; how do you see the greater wealth of customization options for other players being a problem?

[biostem]

If the animation times are the same, then I don't see why you couldn't simply make all non-weapon animations available to all non-weapon attacks...