Power graphics that made you shelve a character

[Gentoo]

Been playing fire/fire Blaster and finally got to level 20 and got the cauterizing Aura... the power that is essential because it keeps end and health up, but wow, that graphic pulsing is annoying and there appears to be no option to minimize it. SO I'm giving up on this fire/fire build.

 

Sonic is pretty well known for being headache inducing. It used to be even worse.

 

The earth control immobilize is obnoxious as are the ice armors, but at least you can turn the ice armor graphic off.

 

Anybody have other graphics or sounds that made you give up on a character you'd otherwise play?

Edited August 31, 2021 by Gentoo

[Black Talon]

Not being a cause to give up an alt, but a Fire/Fire Blaster I had Back In The Day (and the OP author and other will doubtless recognize this) - when he was doing the build-up for the sniper blast, looked as though he was dealing with constipation.  There was endless ribbing about this during team-ups - and yeah, okay, I started more than my fair share of it - but for a guy who was supposed to be a merciless Heaven-sent avenger, it sure did detract from whatever seriousness he was trying to set.  Also wish the fire sword could have been altered to look a bit less like the Eastern-style scimitar.

[gamingglen]

5 hours ago, Black Talon said:

Not being a cause to give up an alt, but a Fire/Fire Blaster I had Back In The Day (and the OP author and other will doubtless recognize this) - when he was doing the build-up for the sniper blast, looked as though he was dealing with constipation.  There was endless ribbing about this during team-ups - and yeah, okay, I started more than my fair share of it - but for a guy who was supposed to be a merciless Heaven-sent avenger, it sure did detract from whatever seriousness he was trying to set.  Also wish the fire sword could have been altered to look a bit less like the Eastern-style scimitar.

 

This is one reason I cannot get into playing a fire blaster: the "squat".  At least now I don't have to have Firebreathe be coming from the actual mouth like some fire breathing dragon (then that would be okay if I wanted to play such... we need a dragon head, the reptile thing is ugly but that's for another discussion).

 

I love energy blaster's animations.

 

Too bad the devs didn't let us choose energy type and animation type separately from the beginning. 😞 

[Ukase]

6 hours ago, Gentoo said:

Anybody have other graphics or sounds that made you give up on a character you'd otherwise play?

May I ask what graphic card you use, and what you're settings are at? I've got more than a couple fire blasters, and I've seen this aura on my characters. But, I never really noticed it, especially since it no longer deals damage when stealthed (and doesn't cancel stealth anymore). I tend to be more focused on the npcs I get to clobber, maybe. 

Because if you're seeing it that clearly, if the crypto miners ever leave something for those who game, I'm gonna have to get myself one of those cards you have. Mine used to be mid-tier, but now it's kind of old. (NVidia 1650, 5g ddr) 
I keep wondering what other people are seeing when they play. I mean, I wear reading glasses, but I'm 20/20 with 'em, I promise!  Or maybe I'm just obtuse. 

[ZemX]

Played a Sonic Blast corruptor once.... once.   Also Kinetic Melee.  Although with Sonic, it's probably just the audio, which might be fixed with a mod maybe.   Kinetic Melee also has awful sound effects.   Now that I've heard it called "NASCAR Melee" I can't think of it any other way.  But the animations are awful too.  The one character I made with it was a mime.  Because that's what it reminded me of.

 

Other than that, I tend to just stay away from VFX heavy powersets.  Never have, and probably never will play a Stormie.  I don't care how good it is.

 

And MMs.  Can't play MMs.  Visual spam fest.  Ninjas and Thugs aren't too bad but I don't see them nearly as often as robots or demons or wolves.

 

Would love a minimal option for Rad Armor.  I can tone it down decently well with color choices but I still have spinning ping pong balls I'd love to lose.  I can put up with it though.

[Xenosone]

Im running a gtx 1080 and the game at 60hz but i have my particles turned way down because the game just cant handle it. 

[Outrider_01]

Some of the stalker assassin strikes, at least back in the day.  But the savage melee looks awesome!

[ZemX]

1 minute ago, Outrider_01 said:

Some of the stalker assassin strikes, at least back in the day.  But the savage melee looks awesome!

 

Ugh.. good point.  A fair number of them are that awful horse stance. 

 

But Elec Melee's AS is awesome too.  As is Ninja Blade.

[Vulpoid]

So... the cool thing is you can change the sounds and fonts in COX....

and.... to a certain extent turn off graphics. 
You can turn off effects on your own character for any power pool.

/bind KEY "SuppressCloseFX 1$$SuppressCloseFXdist 300"
This will turn off your auras and armors visual effects for you, in your view only, unless you scroll 300 feet out. Others will still see them. change the number as you desire
/bind KEY "SuppressCloseFX 0" will turn all the visual fireworks back on.
Pick two keys you like.

[Bill Z Bubba]

For me it was the sounds and not the visuals. Some powers led to instant headaches. Oubliette_Red's thread above and the same methodology back before the snap saved many a character and my sanity.

[Glacier Peak]

I came close to rerolling my main because of Arctic Fog, that FX is awful and actually has a noticeable impact on my FPS! But I am a glutton lol

[Yomo Kimyata]

There's a number.  Some can be overcome; some cannot.

 

Elemental swords -- out.  Elemental breath powers -- out.  There are a few characters where these are essential powers (Ice stalker, e.g.) so they go to rot.

 

I have issues with most of the EATs.  I dislike the non-human forms of the Khelds aesthetically.  I made my first crab form Soldier and I am going to have to change body type, because I can't see a damn thing with all those arms.

[Zhym]

10 hours ago, Gentoo said:

Anybody have other graphics or sounds that made you give up on a character you'd otherwise play?

Any given Kinetic Melee power.  Just pick one—it annoys me.

 

Like playing a Mighty Morphin' Power Ranger.

[arcane]

Not making me shelf, but Staff’s Breakdance PBAoE attack kept me from making a character with the set for a long time.

[DarknessEternal]

Bio Armor.

[Shenanigunner]

1 hour ago, Vulpoid said:

You can turn off effects on your own character for any power pool.

/bind KEY "SuppressCloseFX 1$$SuppressCloseFXdist 300"
This will turn off your auras and armors visual effects for you, in your view only, unless you scroll 300 feet out. Others will still see them. change the number as you desire
/bind KEY "SuppressCloseFX 0" will turn all the visual fireworks back on.
Pick two keys you like.

 

Just wanted to quote this for emphasis. There have been a bunch of complaints about annoying and excessive personal graphics in the last few days and I was going to post exactly this as a community reminder.

 

In my case, I was tired of my screen going full Hell-0n-Wheels-title-sequence every time I went into squid mode. 300 feet might be excessive, as that means you'll NEVER see your alt's graphics. Maybe 30-50 feet is better, so when you're close in, you don't get blinded-out, but further back, you can see them. Players should experiment with the cancellation distance.

 

You can also just use a slash command to set-and-forget your chosen distance and bind only to the on/off command. That would let you tweak the distance more easily.

[Shenanigunner]

17 minutes ago, arcane said:

Not making me shelf, but Staff’s Breakdance PBAoE attack kept me from making a character with the set for a long time.

 

But the ridiculous "poke 'em in the feet:" animation of Effective Strike or whatever just cries out for some emote text...

[A Cat]

30 minutes ago, arcane said:

Not making me shelf, but Staff’s Breakdance PBAoE attack kept me from making a character with the set for a long time.

 Why? That's the best part. 

[ZemX]

12 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

But the ridiculous "poke 'em in the feet:" animation of Effective Strike or whatever just cries out for some emote text...

 

[ZemX]

2 minutes ago, A Cat said:

 Why? That's the best part. 

 

One solution for those who hate it is to Hover while doing it.  Less break-dance.   More triple-axel.

[Uun]

41 minutes ago, arcane said:

Not making me shelf, but Staff’s Breakdance PBAoE attack kept me from making a character with the set for a long time.

My staffer has a huge physique set to minimum height. That animation is absolutely hilarious.

[gamingglen]

42 minutes ago, arcane said:

Not making me shelf, but Staff’s Breakdance PBAoE attack kept me from making a character with the set for a long time.

 

I refuse to take that power because of the animation. My staff scrapper has been sitting at level 48 for over a year. I log onto it, hit a few things in the PI Portal Corp parking lot, then switch to another character. Staff lost its luster some time ago, I'm surprised I got to level 48 (maybe did a MSR raid or two with it?).

[gamingglen]

10 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

One solution for those who hate it is to Hover while doing it.  Less break-dance.   More triple-axel.

 

I might try that. Maybe. So many other alts, though...

[Glacier Peak]

Based on the suggestions in this thread, I modified my graphics settings and reduced my max particle count and it helped a bit (approx. +20 FPS). Normally hovered around 80-100 FPS, now nominally around 100-120FPS. I too am rocking a GTX 1080.

[Triumphant]

I typically test the different power auras/animations in the costume creator before I finish making my character, so there's no animation/aura that has ever made me abandon a character.  There are powers that I won't ever pick b/c I dislike the graphics, though:

 

1) Ice armor.  The graphics on this power are terrible.  You've got these big, cumbersome, goofy-looking blobs of ice on your arms and legs.  Like, you're supposed to move... fight effectively with those?  I don't know how you could even stand up, honestly.  Also, it makes your character look like an idiot.

 

2) Ice/fire sword.  Pretty cheesy looking.  I don't hate them quite as much as Ice armor.  I will occasionally take them if I badly need a close-in attack on a ranged toon, but I'm never really happy about it.  I feel like the graphics for these could be redone to look much better than they do.

 

3) Some melee weapons/guns.  There are some wonderful-looking guns and melee weapons in this game.  Most of them are poorly rendered and uninteresting to look at, though.  It's like someone that wasn't interested in creating the weapon models was given the task and then got sick of it and started getting lazy about it.  Here- I'll bang out another crappy-looking gun.  There we go, done.  Now I can move on to something more enjoyable.

 

Now, granted, a person's opinion on what is visually appealing is an entirely subjective thing, so maybe I'm the only (or, at least, one of a few) people that feel this way.