Why don't ALL auras have a minimal effects option?

[Story Archer]

I know many people spend a lot of time on their look and take a degree of pride in it... but often times a particular aura either wrecks the look thematically or obscures the costume almost entirely. Moreover, so many powers have auras that you can have a literal lollapalooza going on and that's BEFORE allies start layering on all of their auras and shields... it seems like this would be an incredibly easy and popular fix, comparatively speaking - any idea why it hasn't been done?

[biostem]

5 minutes ago, Story Archer said:

any idea why it hasn't been done?

Are you referring to click or toggle powers that produce an aura on/around your character?  If so, then yes, I agree there should be a "no FX" option.  

[Story Archer]

42 minutes ago, biostem said:

Are you referring to click or toggle powers that produce an aura on/around your character?  If so, then yes, I agree there should be a "no FX" option.  

Yes, exactly that. I'm sure everyone has auras they like and auras they hate... it would be nice to be able to choose. Honestly, lots of different versions of the auras would be great, but I'm not asking for all that, just the option to turn off visuals that we don't like.

[Sunsette]

When having anywhere from 5 to 12 toggles active is entirely common for a 50th level character, the toggle effects are largely ugly, excessive, and do not inform.

 

I may not love my allies covering me in green fire that turns me translucent but it at least serves the purpose there that I know I am clearly in their area of effect and receiving benefit. I don't get any useful information or visual appeal from color barf caused by toggles I can just look at my tray for.

Edited March 3 by Sunsette

[Saiyajinzoningen]

@Story Archer

I'm gonna be honest with you. 

I've been playing this game for decades and its always been a lightshow

it never really bothered me before.

and then I played radiation armor.

As awesome as the set is.

I cannot play it because just looking at it is like staring into the sun.

so yes OP I am with you

[Greycat]

13 hours ago, Story Archer said:

any idea why it hasn't been done?

 

... because it takes time to do?

[Oubliette_Red]

19 hours ago, biostem said:

Are you referring to click or toggle powers that produce an aura on/around your character?  If so, then yes, I agree there should be a "no FX" option.  

 

Yeah, I believe they are referring to power GFX, not the aura, confused me when I first read it too, I thought "You literally choose to put an aura on your character, why would there be a Minimum/No FX option?"

 

I agree with having the option for powers GFX, only it'd have to be an Options setting that applied to buffs placed on your character by others since you can't make other players chose the option in their powers customization. Makes me wonder that if we add a comment to our own costume files regarding said power even if we don't own it, would it have any effect.  Hmmm...

 

Sadly, adding the parameter for minimal FX Ice Shield to your own power customization file appears to have no effect, I even went to a trainer and loaded the power customization file just to be sure. Fortunately is doesn't seem to break anything either.

 

Edited March 3 by Oubliette_Red

[Riverdusk]

Definitely agreed, but not just auras.  Some buffs as well.  Worst offender to me is still controller's dark affinity Fade power.  Literally turns your whole party's character models almost completely invisible and they have no say in it.   I know for a fact some people hate having their character model so see through, not only completely obscuring their costume, but also sometimes making it hard for some people to really be able to determine where their character is/be able to control their character properly. 

 

It also sometimes confuses people as they think since their character is see through and has 'stealth like' GFX,  that the Fade buff must be giving them stealth right?  They are then in for a rude awakening as it doesn't actually give any stealth.

 

Would love an alternate min GFX for Fade.  Right now I worry every time about using it in a team because I don't know if I'm annoying people with it.

Edited March 3 by Riverdusk

[Sunsette]

As far as translucency I'd just kill for a Null the Gull setting that disables translucency on your character.

I track my toggles to know if my stealth power is active or not and the transparency just looks awful because there's no self-occlusion so you see all the little polygony bits inside.

[Random Robot]

1 hour ago, Sunsette said:

As far as translucency I'd just kill for a Null the Gull setting that disables translucency on your character.

I track my toggles to know if my stealth power is active or not and the transparency just looks awful because there's no self-occlusion so you see all the little polygony bits inside.

 

1000% this. Transparency is the bane of my coh existence.

[Story Archer]

I'll be honest, I pick my melee toon defensive power sets as much based on how unobtrusive the visuals are as anything else...

[Riverdusk]

4 hours ago, Sunsette said:

As far as translucency I'd just kill for a Null the Gull setting that disables translucency on your character.

I track my toggles to know if my stealth power is active or not and the transparency just looks awful because there's no self-occlusion so you see all the little polygony bits inside.

 

That'd definitely work as well.  And yeah, Leadership toggles are some of the worst on the floating bits thing.  You get these ugly white boxes floating around inside your character when stealthed and having tactics or maneuvers going.  Looks awful and bugs me every time.

[Story Archer]

On 3/3/2024 at 7:00 AM, Greycat said:

 

... because it takes time to do?

Well, they've done plenty of things that take time to do...

[biostem]

On 3/4/2024 at 12:53 PM, Sunsette said:

As far as translucency I'd just kill for a Null the Gull setting that disables translucency on your character.

From what I've gathered, Null only applies things on a per-power basis, (with the exception of the travel power popup tray, which is a singular entity unto itself), and the devs are loathe to add more to it...

[Random Robot]

2 minutes ago, biostem said:

From what I've gathered, Null only applies things on a per-power basis, (with the exception of the travel power popup tray, which is a singular entity unto itself), and the devs are loathe to add more to it...

 Wouldn't have to be a Null thing, I'd be happy with a client-side graphics option. I don't care if other people see me as transparent or not 🙂

[biostem]

2 minutes ago, Random Robot said:

Wouldn't have to be a Null thing, I'd be happy with a client-side graphics option. I don't care if other people see me as transparent or not 🙂

Gotcha.  I think a "no fade" option would be the best option, accessible from within the tailor...

[Greycat]

7 hours ago, Story Archer said:

Well, they've done plenty of things that take time to do...

And? I've done plenty of things that take time to do, and have other things that also take time to do.  Time and people are limited resources. You asked why it hasn't been done. That would likely be a big reason why.

[Story Archer]

On 3/6/2024 at 12:20 AM, Greycat said:

And? I've done plenty of things that take time to do, and have other things that also take time to do.  Time and people are limited resources. You asked why it hasn't been done. That would likely be a big reason why.

 

Yes. You - like everyone else - has limited time to do the things you would like to do and, thus, have to make choices regarding what you do and don't do with those limited resources. You probably make that decision based on some sort of expenditure of resources vs. degree of reward determination. I assume the devs do as well. Considering how popular this would be and the relative complexity of doing it (as opposed to, say, introducing an all new power set across multiple platforms or adding a 20+ item scavenger hunt across multiple, all for a single badge), I would think that this would be a no-brainer... which leaves me to wonder why it hasn't been one of the things they've chosen to do with their limited time and resources. Of course, I have to assume they have some reason, one I'm not privy to, so I'm left to ask 'any idea why it hasn't been done?'...

 

A snarky 'because it takes time to do' adds nothing to the discussion.

[Greycat]

23 hours ago, Story Archer said:

A snarky 'because it takes time to do' adds nothing to the discussion.

 

So since you're aware time is a limited resource - and I'm assuming you're aware we have a completely volunteer team who does have other things to do with *their* time, versus getting paid for 40 or more hours a week of doing this - why did you bother asking the question?

 

This may be high on *your* priority list. Meanwhile, I see patch notes with new powersets, new story arcs, new base items and various fixes - rather a long list.

 

So, yes, to answer your question:

 

On 3/2/2024 at 5:21 PM, Story Archer said:

any idea why it hasn't been done?

 

As I said. Time. You don't like that answer, I don't care.

[Story Archer]

On 3/8/2024 at 2:28 PM, Greycat said:

 

So since you're aware time is a limited resource - and I'm assuming you're aware we have a completely volunteer team who does have other things to do with *their* time, versus getting paid for 40 or more hours a week of doing this - why did you bother asking the question?

 

This may be high on *your* priority list. Meanwhile, I see patch notes with new powersets, new story arcs, new base items and various fixes - rather a long list.

 

So, yes, to answer your question:

 

As I said. Time. You don't like that answer, I don't care.

 

This is just a ridiculous take. Literally everything that's ever been done has taken time to do. Don't be argumentative just for argument's sake.

 

If you want to say that they don't consider it a priority over every other thing that they have done, well, that too is blatantly obvious and doesn't provide any actual answers, but it does at least address the question. What I'm curious to know is why hasn't it been considered something that was worthwhile to do? I imagine it would take less effort than most other things they work on, and if the reason was that there wasn't enough of a demand for it, then I'm here to put in my two cents. 🙂

Edited March 14 by Story Archer