Too much freakiness in the costume generator. Also we need an expanded palette.

[temnix]

The first point is simple, and the problem will be easy to correct. I wrote about it a little before. There is too much weight given when generating costumes to monster and beast heads, exposed brains and all that creepiness, and for that matter, to full helmets and everything else that obscures the face. Faceless characters should be uncommon, freak heads - rare. When you take away the face, even with the limited choices we've got, you erase the whole social front. But more than this, there is too much weight given to tails, wings, backpacks (I had five characters in a row appear with the same jet pack on the back last evening, like they were handing it down), and far too many people get auras. Auras are garish and should be used sparingly, especially full-body auras. I know I can adjust what I don't like in a random result, and I do, of course, but too many concepts are simply unworkable. What is the point of this abundance of costume options? To roll up the most outlandish mutants or to give players a foundation from which players they can develop a story? Or even something more or less human and likeable. Let those who want total freaks put in the effort, don't make it the default.

 

By the way, there should be an option to keep the colors unlinked while generating. Most of the time this will produce clowns, but sometimes the combinations will be suggestive, and colors are not as obviously off-putting as shapes. But PC and NPC in this game also need more color choices. The ones in place are primitive. The skin tone line-up is right limited, and the gammas for clothes go from very dark and saturated on the left to bright and saturated, almost the basic RGB angles, followed by a light but pale color and then a couple of unsaturated dim ones. The result is that if the generator has fortunately given me a very variegated, very asymmetric and interesting costume and I want to multiply the colors even more and turn the big boot on the right leg blue, I have to choose between practically a 0,0,255 azure, a famished cerulean and a half-grey that looks like it's leaving the room. It's possible that the original developers wanted characters to wear these toneless basics, like comic-book superheroes (they thought), but this doesn't work for anyone who isn't imitating Superman. Or World of Warcraft.

 

There has long been lots of talk about what a community-inculcating place City of Heroes is, but I'm not seeing it. I didn't see it when I played it in the old days either. I see crowds of people who run past each other, sometimes giving a little glance, who get a nice warm feeling from a big crowd around arbiters, but otherwise lead parallel lives. If they go to Pocket-D, they dance with people they know or just by themselves, they associate within supergroups or over missions. That is what this game does: it creates an illusion of being in a common world of exciting superheroes, while in reality we are stand-ins. The way the costume generator encourages mindless, alienating randomness in crude colors may not be the top reason for this. There are bigger reasons and others not so big too, for example, origin still doesn't matter. But this treatment of looks kills attempts at sophistication, and without sophistication there is no communication, because you can't even point out to someone that his costume doesn't make sense, or ask what sense it might make. I would be prepared to accept a joke, but there isn't even a joke. Half of the time those costumes are rolled off the conveyor belt and have no concept at all.

[Rudra]

20 minutes ago, temnix said:

The way the costume generator encourages mindless, alienating randomness in crude colors may not be the top reason for this.

It isn't even a bottom reason for it. The costume creator has nothing to do with whether players want to form teams or not.

 

20 minutes ago, temnix said:

But this treatment of looks kills attempts at sophistication, and without sophistication there is no communication, because you can't even point out to someone that his costume doesn't make sense, or ask what sense it might make.

Having a random function in the costume creator is supposed to be that. Random. I don't understand why you expect sophistication in costume design from a randomly selected group of costume options. And if you think someone's costume doesn't make sense, then the only thing preventing you from asking what effect or concept that player is going for is you. (Though you shouldn't tell someone their costume doesn't make sense. It makes sense to them. You don't get to impose your standards on character appearance on others.) And if another player's costume is what is keeping you from reaching out to talk to that player? That is entirely on you.

 

20 minutes ago, temnix said:

Half of the time those costumes are rolled off the conveyor belt and have no concept at all.

And you know this for a fact how? I've seen some costumes that I thought didn't make much sense, but they had a bio that explained it. I've seen other costumes that I thought didn't make sense and had no bios for me to try to figure out, but it isn't my character to play so who cares as long as that player enjoys it. I have a friend that makes the most outlandish costumes he can, costumes that you would probably say are not sophisticated and have no concept at all. He does have a concept though. And if asked, he happily explains why his character is such a mishmash of parts. (Sometimes it is theme, and other times it is to make people go "Oh god no!!! My mind! What are you doing?!". His words, not mine.)

 

I don't know if any costume pieces are weighted for the random function in the character creator, though it does often seem that way. So if any costume parts are weighted? I agree that they shouldn't be. Your complaint about others costumes not making sense and the random costume function should be changed to address that and make "sophisticated" character concepts? Well that part I just don't agree with.

 

Edited February 22 by Rudra
Edited to add missing "and had no bios for me to try to figure out".

[Grouchybeast]

6 hours ago, Rudra said:

I don't know if any costume pieces are weighted for the random function in the character creator, though it does often seem that way. So if any costume parts are weighted? I agree that they shouldn't be. 

 

Just based on the way it looks, I think that the reason it brings up so many weird heads is that it's unweighted, and rolled at each level.  So the random generator first rolls between the 18 top level head options.  If that's true, then the basic chances of getting the different head types would be:

 

1/18 - any of the standard, unmasked heads

1/18 - a fully masked head

2/18 - a hat or hood

4/18 - some kind of non-Arachnos helmet

2/18 - tank/floating head

7/18 - animal or monster

1/18 - one of the Arachnos faction helmets (or a pumpkin)

 

It could probably do with some tweaking to make it more representative of the full range of possibilities. 

 

What I've always thought would be really nice would be to be able to 'lock' a particular part and keep random rolling the rest of the costume.

 

[Akisan]

1 hour ago, Grouchybeast said:

What I've always thought would be really nice would be to be able to 'lock' a particular part and keep random rolling the rest of the costume.

 

This, please!.  I've seen this in a few other games, and it's great! Sometimes the random will spit out a costume where part of it looks amazing, but the rest needs rerolling.

 

8 hours ago, temnix said:

What is the point of this abundance of costume options? To roll up the most outlandish mutants or to give players a foundation from which players they can develop a story? Or even something more or less human and likeable. Let those who want total freaks put in the effort, don't make it the default.

 

That is one of the reasons I hit the random button when starting a new toon - usually I'll already have a backstory/theme readied, but not always.  The random generator's good for that!  Also, for whatever reason, it's really good at making ghost pirates.  I've had more than a few pop up on the random generator.

 

7 hours ago, Rudra said:

It isn't even a bottom reason for it. The costume creator has nothing to do with whether players want to form teams or not.

 

I fortunately didn't have to deal with it much myself, but I have heard horror stories from the days of "random, all-black" being fairly common, to the point that a few guides were released on how to be fashionable.  For the most part, I don't care what someone's costume is, but if I was surrounded by those horrors?  I'd probably leave team as soon as I politely could. (Or swap to an Ice/ or Fire/ defender - cover their costumes right up!)

 

(Ok I lied - I do care.  People who have amazing costumes tend to be more fun to RP with, for whatever reason.  Maybe it's because they're that much more invested in the character?  Either way, the costume rarely affects my willingness to team with someone - it's generally their attitude that affects that!)