Progression Vs Customization: One At The Expense Of The Other (Warning: Lots Of Pictures!)

[HolidayPi3]

This thread will primarily be focused on customization options & their relation with progression. This thread is not here to talk about whether or not the current progression system that DE has set is bad, but rather how it affects player choice and customization. This thread will also be very very subjective. Please do not comment if all you are going to say is "you have bad tastes." I am not trying to take anything away from any party with these suggestions-- only add more flexibility to the color / customization system.

Before the introduction of prime items as direct upgrades, customization in terms of color was wonderful. Making a load out that was both effective and thematic came naturally-- I wasn't forced to integrate gold into my color schemes if I wanted to stay useful.

Nice and clean! Everything feels as if it's in harmony.

 

Given that prime items now constitute the majority of effective endgame gear, now I have to take on the gold, and find a place for it in my color schemes. I don't have anything against the design of prime items, I find many of them to be very elaborate and beautiful, I just personally do not like having colors forced upon me. Gold does not fit with everything. However, I took it as a challenge, so I started making color palettes around the gold.

Accommodating the gold-- it didn't clash terribly, but it still bothered me. I could deal with it, though.

However, I soon grew tired of only using a few color palettes that worked with gold. Gold became the limiting factor of customization, especially if I wanted to use the weapon sets that I worked so hard to obtain / are useful in T3 void and endgame. This problem only gets worse with the inclusion of T4 void and end game, where prime items literally constitute the majority of viable items for that level bracket. But this is a totally separate issue.

Using a color set that I would like to use in conjunction with my most effective prime weapon... sometimes isn't very visually appealing.

*Segway*

This next part of the topic will be addressing something of the same general theme-- elemental effects on melee weapons. With the introduction of Melee 2.0, we'll all be stylishly chopping, smashing, slicing, and comboing enemies into nice, bite sized bits. Naturally, I'll want to look cool while doing cool things.

Sadly, the current implementation of elemental particles hinders this, as it forces an additional glowy color on your weapon while covering the beautiful weapon crafted by the art / design team. This color is not changeable and has a tendency to clash with your color set.

The fact that I have to change my element based on the faction I'm facing also doesn't help this dilemma.

Now when we combine the two issues (primes & elements), I'm left with matching the gold of the primes and the elemental set I'm using with my color scheme. Quite the challenge! The end result is usually just... too busy for my tastes.

What I'd like to suggest, as I'm sure many others have, is to make elemental effects a toggle. I'm sure many others absolutely adore the elemental effects, and I'd hate to take that away from them. But I could personally do without them.

Failing that, I'd like to suggest energy be colored by energy, much like the Ignis, Saryn's poison effects, or Ember's flame effects.

I apologize if I sound selfish or self centered or very 'me me me!' I'm not very good with words.

TL;DR

Primes are the end-all for endgame-- gold doesn't fit with a number of color schemes. Are there any plans to address this? Will there be a way to transmute prime items into their regular counterparts?

Request for elemental effects to be toggled. Request for elemental effects to be colored by energy. 
 

Edited March 23, 2014 by HolidayPi3

[Seox]

Completely agree with this issue and have felt the same way for a while now - thank you for posting this. Hopefully the devs'll take note and offer a solution.

[RealmDestroyer]

 Request for elemental effects to be colored by energy. 

 

But if people would have the ability to color their elemental effects, nobody would know who was using what.

[Seox]

But if people would have the ability to color their elemental effects, nobody would know who was using what.

 

Is this information that people need to know? I'm not asking that rhetorically - the devs intentionally left out UI information pertaining to players' currently equipped frames, which is substantially more important than what elemental effects that have on their weapons.

 

Users already know what they have equipped based on the arsenal's information and mods they installed.

[Kaian-a-coel]

But if people would have the ability to color their elemental effects, nobody would know who was using what.

Does anyone care to look at pugs weapon to check if they are indeed using the correct elemental combination?

[HolidayPi3]

But if people would have the ability to color their elemental effects, nobody would know who was using what.

This is true for conclaves, where I guess that stuff would be relevant (is it? I heard conclaves are just a 1 shot fest...). They could be made to be non toggle for conclaves.

But for the rest of the PvE game, it's already difficult to tell what type of elements people are shooting with their guns unless you're staring at their muzzle flash. The Ignis flames are colorable, so it's difficult to tell what element that is. Explosions from the Penta and Ogris don't say much about their element. Right now, melee weapons are the only weapons that you can kinda sorta tell what elements someone is using, and even so, it's not really something that people desperately need to know.

[Noogums]

Yeesh, that's a Hell of a thread. I'm going to hold off on merging it with another "Elemental Effects Toggle" thread, because it has other subject matter. But if that part of this thread gets the most attention with comments, I'll merge them so that the feedback is nice and neat in one thread.

On-topic, I also support the Effect Toggle. I want to keep some weapons "Pure".

[Zkorp]

Oh yes, it's very hard to have to be limited to an extremely restricted palette colors. And even if you try with the exception of "pale light brow/yellow nothing really match the gold.

 

I also truly hate the total global glowing effect of the melee weapons, to counter that I only use non-elemental mods or I just wear melee weapons with no mods and only for cosmetics. (melee is bad anyway but sometimes I have to use it to break things to loot or with my Ash sometimes...)

 

Nota : I don't say that these effect or the gold is ugly, they are good and well done, I just want to say that it completely mess all your effort to look like you want to look. For some player the look is important, for exemple I've bought frame that I can't play because I don't like how the character moves or if he have a bad colours customization.

 

(active them only in conclave if that really matter)

 

If I want to be in black I don't want to be inside a green glowing halo because I wear a corrosive imbued sword !!!