Look at all these ridiculous reskins.
I would like to have any battle sprite be able to wear any harness. The logic behind the restriction system was along the lines of "well these sprites have this and this but not this, and they all fit together with each other! Plus it doesn't make sense for such a creature to have such a typing. Like a seraphynx, such a pure spirit, with shadow? Ridiculous! Drakon doesn't look like it can deal piercing. Blah blah."
Well, considering reskins, I could legitimately argue that any harness makes sense nowadays. Before, I just scratched my head and wondered "but what about blue/green? How will the harness patterns work then? Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock?!"
That black kat seraphynx certainly looks capable of dabbling in the dark. The volc/freeze masker look capable of wielding the elemental. Now, I'm not saying let just the reskins have the odd harnesses, that would just complicate things further and I would be 100% against that option. Just get rid of the restriction alltogether, let any sprite wear any harness.
This has generally been a desire for some time now, actually. If only for costume purposes. Really! Look how bootyfull these could be. Please read the words of the artist and desire ^.^
That's just a basic desire for a simple change that I feel would benefit the game in general. What good comes from the restriction, anyway? A bit of balance/diversity? Making players think? With the massive cooldowns and the way many abilities don't even work with damage being the intent, I don't think balance is truly a valid point, but, it is a point.
I'd like to have a harness costume option for any tier harness. I know elite is the best and all that, but sometimes I want a certain look. And once you go Elite you never go back, it replaces the weaker one preceeding it. Just let me have all that I've bought for the costume option, and really, the functional slot as well, if I want to nerf myself. This is the end of the basic idea, I am going to go into some details now.
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MOAR
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There are three empty slots on the battle sprite window interface between the sprite/harness/perk icons and the skill icons. I wish to fill these with things, and bump the perk up under the sprite icon for general organization purposes.
So the new screen would be (Left --> Right = Top --> Down):
Sprite, Perk, Harness, Disc, Chip, Mien, Skill A/B/C
What the heck are these chip/disc/mien things? Small modifiers you are presumed to stick into your sprite's harness to program/change it - like USB drives, discs, apps, whatever. They incorporate other ideas posted in the forums before, I just wanted to sort of bump them here again. Most discs/chips could be available from Riley for whatever amount.
Harness - they damage type your sprite deals, of course. Elemental, Normal, Piercing, Shadow.
Disc - the status type of your sprite. I want users to think of sprites as utility entities with innate, but adjustable, abilities. Sprites are meant to be utility, not mindless damage dealers. With these recent reskins (volcanic maskeraith = fire, do I need to go into it?), this makes more sense than it would have in the past. But still, I'd like for things to be uniform, not restricted to certain reskins and complicating things. Here is a recent idea with similar flavor. I would like these to be discs instead of harnesses is all. There might have to be some major tweaks to a few skill ultimates, feel free to discuss. Here's another older yet relevant thread. Please no necromancy. EDIT: for visibility on sprite, I was thinking this would just sorta be like trinkets (we don't see trinks on our knights, just get effects), but I suppose the sprite could get a nice, OPTIONAL, aura effect or something.
Here is a potential disc interface.
Chip - the behavior of your sprite during cooldown and/or in general. Autotarget, autocasting included here. Here are my ideas regarding chips. EDIT: appearances again. Hmm.
Here is a potential chip look (from previous thread 109509).
Mien - OOO releases some new sprite look. It's a very rare box drop, craftable, or whatever. Congratulations, you obtained a Mien. Where did it go? Choose a Mien from a mostly invisible inventory (like how your harnesses work) to change your sprite's appearance. Whatever tier/ultimates you have chosen will sync up to the Mien, as if you "equipped Drakon (Gun Pup) as Drakon Costume." I hope this makes sense. You can equip and unequip a mien as easily as you can costumes over your armor. Miens could have icons that look like a weird combination of a screen+mirror. If you change your sprite with a reset star, the mien will pop off into your weird invisible inventory, and the default mien (your original sprite's look) will be shown. I would prefer having this sort of mien thing, allowing me to change the color/looks of the sprite I worked hard to raise and love dearly, instead of raising an entirely new reskin, but I think we all know OOO won't do things this way - and I guess raising new sprites brings players back for a good while. But reskins make me feel...I don't know. Like I have less of "An Eternal Bond" with my sprites. There's a huge difference between raising sprites that resonate with a mineral color once, and having a ton of them just sitting there like costumes. Makes me feel...idk...weird. I guess it lets me have different combinations of ultimates at the ready. But down the road...? Yeah. Problems.
Here is a potential mien interface.
So there's that. What would happen to all the reskins we've raised already? Oh sheesh. This is the sort of thing that would be a painful change. It just should have been like this from the start, imo.
While we're at this, please, for the love of Vog, add a preview option for when ultimates are selected.
All images are modified screenshots from in-game using Jasc PSP 8 and my mouse clicks, as well as a few generic images sometimes. Yes, ancient stuff.
Make this happen right now.
Though, one question. Where would discs be shown on the sprite?