All Aura Powers/Adaptations Should Have a Transparent Option

[Zeraphia]

Here is an example of a Poison/Fire Defender I made recently:

I really love her costume and concept, I was going to kind of "ignore" the fire part of her and just make her blasts look like she's throwing out poison by recoloring them (something I don't mind at all!) But then... to make the build work I had to take the Psychic Mastery (Mind Over Body) pool, it reminded me of much I despise the effects of how overpowered certain auras are in this game.

This is the least obtrusive coloring of MoB I could end up with...

It doesn't mesh well at all with my Venomous Gas power and it looks weird.

It creates a weird yellow-y environmental in the background of my character that I can't get rid of.

Another example, my Psi/Mind/Cold Dominator, I picked the Cold pool mastery for the -res from the rains, and the defense shield for its protection, also hoarfrost for the HP... Set on minimal effects too BTW.

I would rather she just had no effects on her visually, but it is so overpowering of a glow, that even recolored, it looks absolutely obnoxious. There there is Fiery Aura on my main character for her "evil" costume...

So much of her costume is totally engulfed by Fire Shield (which I need to be on her in order to have her function in combat) for reference without it (which I much prefer):

You can see a lot more of her outfit, yes the effects are a little much visually, but you can see much more of it and her details as opposed to when I have Fire Shield turned on. These auras can be exceptionally disruptive to the themes and visuals of characters. I highly recommend making a setting that just turns it **OFF.**

Edited May 11, 2020 by Zeraphia

[Abysmalyxia]

This is correct. This would be undone in PVP zones or even might not apply to other viewers... but if nothing else *I* don't want to see that nonsense.

[blayzemaster]

Agreed. It makes staying in theme really quite difficult.

Some servers have replicated something similar by allowing you to use pure white on a "dark" power option, and pure black on the "bright" power options. One of those can normally neutralise the effects.

 

Otherwise, some way of just applying an existing toggle with nil effects as the animation to all other toggles would be pretty great. Hell, even if its just tough/weave as a placeholder.

[aethereal]

I don't want invisible fire to be possible, or invisible rocks/ice.  I wish the bio armor minimal fx options were less minimal.  Less obtrusive toggles?  Sure.  But the game is better for tying powers to visuals.  It encourages people to use powers that aren't just the meta.  It encourages then to think about their character's theme and legend.

[Zeraphia]

30 minutes ago, aethereal said:

I don't want invisible fire to be possible, or invisible rocks/ice.  I wish the bio armor minimal fx options were less minimal.  Less obtrusive toggles?  Sure.  But the game is better for tying powers to visuals.  It encourages people to use powers that aren't just the meta.  It encourages then to think about their character's theme and legend.

So... you're for forcing people into playing things they don't want to because you don't like people who play in the meta? This doesn't affect you if they choose to do this, this only affects the person who has the costume. 

[blayzemaster]

37 minutes ago, aethereal said:

I don't want invisible fire to be possible, or invisible rocks/ice.  I wish the bio armor minimal fx options were less minimal.  Less obtrusive toggles?  Sure.  But the game is better for tying powers to visuals.  It encourages people to use powers that aren't just the meta.  It encourages then to think about their character's theme and legend.

Surely the opposite is true?

 

If I want a character who uses fire to attack and heal, but ISN'T surrounded by fire, I can't do that in the current systemn because I can't make the fire shields invisible. I could refuse to take them, but the game is very much not balanced around that. Or, if I'm happy that he has fire shield, but wouldn't pulse fire periodically (but does "heat up" the area around him to justify a PBAoE aura) I can't.

 

The examples I gave allow greater freedom because they essentially allow transparency sliders into powers - more ghost / natural / tehcnology options because there are less particle effects.

[aethereal]

The fact that people might dislike some of the visuals for an armor set (or any set) that they like mechanically creates tension away from the mechanically "best" sets.  The end result of allowing people to turn off visuals for every set is pressure towards the meta sets.  It's an increased number of players who are like, "Oh, yeah, I wanted a human-torch-style fire guy...  so I made a TW/Bio Scrapper.  I use the flaming sword, turned off all visuals for the armor, and use a flame aura."

 

I think that the game benefits from pressure away from the few most common meta sets.  And I also think that the game benefits from people who do none-the-less want to play a meta set thinking about how to actually build a character who aesthetically and by bio and so forth actually trying to build a superhero who "matches" their sets.  Is this me imposing my preferences on other people?  Sure.  It's a social game.  If you build your own private server, I couldn't care less what you do there.  This one is a shared playground.

 

Now, I'm all in favor of a variety of thematic visuals for each power.  I just don't want them to be entirely absent, unless they're things that are thematically invisible, like willpower or invulnerability.

[Chance Jackson]

I support decoupling visuals from mechanics in all places where possible Including adding the visual flair of elemental armors to other protection sets

 

 

with the only exception being PVP for enemy players