Customization Woes - Page 12

ArmedZealot · 2012-05-06, 04:05 PM

Originally Posted by LostAlgorithm

Can you elaborate on this? What kind of taunts? Such as the verbal ones from the original Planetside? Those wouldn't be nearly as bad as a constantly seeing a large hodgepodge collection of soldiers in different armor who are supposedly on the same side.

I don't have any particular thread to look for. But I believe it to be similar to the voice system from PS1 where you could buy a custom taunt, something to replace "You call yourself a soldier?", But the devs reacted positively to taunts that were animations being played in the spawn screen.

Originally Posted by LostAlgorithm

True enough. And I simply don't think they should listen to griefers and trolls when it comes to deciding who to support on this matter.

"I want him to be pissed every time I kill him cause of my armor.", isn't a perspective I'd want to support as a developer at least.

Why not? It's a game that supports competition and antagonism between the empires in a light-hearted fashion. I would put griefing and trolling under that, especially in a game where you kill your opponents with skill and tactics. To be honest I would say the PS supports them as much as EvE does.

Obakan · 2012-05-06, 04:07 PM

One thing that I don't think anyone has brought up yet is whether or not the camo that you can buy will actually be able to help you blend into the environment. If it does help you blend in, won't that give people who purchase a cash shop item that lets them toggle skins on or off an unfair advantage?

In this case, I think it would be a similar argument to whether or not you should be able to toggle the cockpit view of aircraft.

LostAlgorithm · 2012-05-06, 04:13 PM

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

Why not? It's a game that supports competition and antagonism between the empires in a light-hearted fashion. I would put griefing and trolling under that, especially in a game where you kill your opponents with skill and tactics. To be honest I would say the PS supports them as much as EvE does.

Sure, it's fine to have them, but I feel a player should be able to pay to avoid them still. More options are better I feel. Let the players who want the light-hardheartedness have it and the ones who want a slightly more serious online shooter have their experience as well. I don't see how it isn't a fair trade off just because you feel you can't antagonize certainly players.

One thing that I don't think anyone has brought up yet is whether or not the camo that you can buy will actually be able to help you blend into the environment. If it does help you blend in, won't that give people who purchase a cash shop item that lets them toggle skins on or off an unfair advantage?

If camo does confer an advantage for blending in, does it not then become an issue of them implementing pay-to-win? Isn't it only fair then to allow players the option to turn it off?

ArmedZealot · 2012-05-06, 04:17 PM

Originally Posted by LostAlgorithm

Sure, it's fine to have them, but I feel a player should be able to pay to avoid them still. More options are better I feel. Let the players who want the light-hardheartedness have it and the ones who want a slightly more serious online shooter have their experience as well. I don't see how it isn't a fair trade off just because you feel you can't antagonize certainly players.

Because it takes away from people that pay to have their fun when you give people the ability to turn it off, thus risking a loss in potential skin sales?

LostAlgorithm · 2012-05-06, 04:58 PM

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

Because it takes away from people that pay to have their fun when you give people the ability to turn it off, and thus potential skin sales?

They'll never know if you saw it or not. Heck, I bet most won't really pay attention to the kill screen regardless. Not much of a reason to not purchase a skin that you wanted, IMO.

ArmedZealot · 2012-05-06, 05:01 PM

Originally Posted by LostAlgorithm

They'll never know if you saw it or not. Heck, I bet most won't really pay attention to the kill screen regardless. Not much of a reason to not purchase a skin that you wanted, IMO.

Again, it's not that a potential customer doesn't know if they have skins turned on or off, it's that the potential for it to happen is enough to discourages sales.

I wouldn't discount how important that screen is. It will likely be the most viewed menu in the game.

Toppopia · 2012-05-06, 05:06 PM

Originally Posted by Obakan

One thing that I don't think anyone has brought up yet is whether or not the camo that you can buy will actually be able to help you blend into the environment. If it does help you blend in, won't that give people who purchase a cash shop item that lets them toggle skins on or off an unfair advantage?

There was a time in COD Black Ops where i could customise the camo of my gun by seeing what map was being played, so if it was snow i would use white or siberian camo, jungle and i would choose green, etc, but then i realised that was stupid because you can't hide in Black Ops, its not possible, but I would almost pay to by a skin that helped me blend in jungle maps or desert maps, but then the problem arises of giving me an advantage, but i doubt the advantage would be more than the 20% that Higby said would be the difference between veteran and newbie players. So hopefully they do add in camo for each map, that would create new tactics and allow outfits to be more strategic or something like that.

tl;dr: Camo isn't a big advantage boost, hopefully camo will be useful in this game.

LostAlgorithm · 2012-05-06, 05:08 PM

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

Again, it's not that a potential customer doesn't know if they have skins turned on or off, it's that the potential for it to happen is enough to discourages sales.

I wouldn't discount how important that screen is. It will likely be the most viewed menu in the game.

I disagree that it's enough to discourage sales. Players will buy skins that they want regardless. Even the ones earlier who said they wouldn't if this option existed.

Most viewed menu? Sure. Most viewed part of that menu? The button that says I can respawn. I barely pay attention to much else.

And camo should at least be limited by the battleground. No desert camo or forest camo tanks in the snow!

Toppopia · 2012-05-06, 05:16 PM

Originally Posted by LostAlgorithm

And camo should at least be limited by the battleground. No desert camo or forest camo tanks in the snow!

Maybe if there is a camo pack that contains:
Camouflage for each environment.

So if you are in snow, your soldier and tanks automatically become snow camo, desert you become desert etc. But make it so this skin isn't customisable so you can either have this or a custom skin.

I could imagine outfits having a rule about custom camo, probably will say:
"No bright colors, only colors that help blend with environment, anyone using and bright colors will be kicked." or something along those lines.

Purple · 2012-05-06, 05:17 PM

Originally Posted by LostAlgorithm

It's not like I'll be upset at you for having the skin, I'll simply think the developers made a poor choice in selling it. You showing up on my kill screen in pink armor isn't going to make me rage, it'll just make the game less enjoyable as it won't feel like Planetside to me.

if customizations are not in the game like you want. how will this game make money. it needs to be a free to play game without subs so it draws a large player base. i know they also have side-grades and boosters but why would they opt out of customization which will boost profits? people want to be individuals in games nowadays not just another number. you are a very small group of players who think that if people are allowed to look how they want to then the game is not worth playing.

LostAlgorithm · 2012-05-06, 05:23 PM

Originally Posted by Purple

if customizations are not in the game like you want. how will this game make money. it needs to be a free to play game without subs so it draws a large player base. i know they also have side-grades and boosters but why would they opt out of customization which will boost profits? people want to be individuals in games nowadays not just another number. you are a very small group of players who think that if people are allowed to look how they want to then the game is not worth playing.

You haven't read this thread at all if you believe I think customizations should be cut out, or that people shouldn't be able to look how they want. They absolutely should! I'd just like the OPTION to not have to see it while still being able to play the game.

Purple · 2012-05-06, 05:40 PM

Originally Posted by LostAlgorithm

You haven't read this thread at all if you believe I think customizations should be cut out, or that people shouldn't be able to look how they want. They absolutely should! I'd just like the OPTION to not have to see it while still being able to play the game.

right but the way you post its a small jump to assume you dont want them in the game. if this option were to be in the game you may get 1 person in 100 to spend 50-100 to turn them off. however if people know its an option there may be 100 people out of 1000 who dont spend $30 on the game so instead of gaining $3000 they would only get $100 not to mention the fact that the person who spend the $100 will not be spending any additional money on a new camo pattern. it is very common in FTP games that some people will spend $150-300 a year this will be reduced if some people have skins turned off.

ArmedZealot · 2012-05-06, 05:41 PM

Originally Posted by WildVS

You guys still going at this?

Yeah lol. I'm done. I've made my points and have rehashed them several times over. For anyone reading this, including devs, I want to spend my money on skins, don't allow them to be turned off by other players.

Create skins that fit within the universe and if they don't charge extra. Do this and you will have a happy playerbase.

Toppopia · 2012-05-06, 05:44 PM

Originally Posted by WildVS

You guys still going at this? I think one factor you should consider if you haven't already and there is no way I am going to read back over all this. Just thought I'd interject, one of the reasons you will probably not see this opt out viewing feature is consider the amount of dev time and money spent on creating these skins or whatever. I know you say give you the option to pay to turn off viewing but that will likely not come close to offsetting the dev cost. So they will want everyone to see the work they have done to justify the cost. And really to be fair to every one as it may make a difference in overall gameplay (just like option to turn off cockpit was rejected) so with the two mentioned reasons I doubt they allow turning off viewing of cosmetic items.

Those are very good points and this means that skins are now not able to be toggled off if devs spend lots of time making cool skins. Thread closing now?

Kipper · 2012-05-06, 05:56 PM

Originally Posted by LostAlgorithm

True enough. And I simply don't think they should listen to griefers and trolls when it comes to deciding who to support on this matter.

The decision will be made by SoE accountants.

I don't want to grief anyone, and I don't want to look ridiculous or see anything that looks ridiculous - but I will be happy to support the game while I'm enjoying it and hope to see that other people are doing the same, provided its as awesome as it looks like it will be. As someone who runs their own business, I don't always like the projects I'm working on, I like working on awesome stuff, but sometimes I have to do relatively boring stuff because it brings in the money and that's what being in business is about. Awesome product is merely a means by which sales & profit are generated.

I think many people will be turned off by ridiculousness, so I see your viewpoint more than you perhaps think - players that are will find something else to play; and a rather one sided meeting will take place:

"hmm, when we made clown hats and ice cream truck sunderers, we lost 3% of our player-base and 10% of our revenue. Remove the clown hats and ice cream trucks, this instant!".

Following this, an email will go out saying "Please come back to PS2, We've removed clown hats and ice cream trucks!". Everyone will be happy once more.

Now..... If you go ahead in your large zerg numbers and buy clown hats and ice-cream trucks, then they release indian head-dresses and fire engines, and you buy those too - THIS meeting will take place:

"When we made indian head-dresses and fire-engines, our player base remained the same and we made 15% more revenue! Make more quirky hats and silly vehicles, this instant!".

Future players of Planetside 2 - its your choice. Make the right one!