Spiral Knights - Unique Variants displaying cosmetic effects.

Unique Variants displaying cosmetic effects.

23 replies [Last post]

Sat, 06/25/2011 - 18:57

fredman86

Legacy Username

I thought it would be a good cosmetic addition to the game if equipment that possessed unique variants displayed some visual effect when equipped.

It doesn't have to be anything dramatic, and can start for only one type of equip.

Very basic examples:
ASI weapons could have small bolts of lightning crackling around it for Low/Med, and larger bolts for High and Very High.
Shadow Defense shields could have a purple mist swirling around it. Higher grade UVs would have a large cloud of mist. Fire would be red, Shock teal, Piercing yellow, and so forth.

The reasoning behind this is that as the metagame shifts toward favoring one kind of equipment, there tend to be a lot of knights that look like clones of each other. This might be a way to make UVs more versatile, as it is not only a minor stat boost, but a way to personalize your own look.

In case the added lag becomes an issue, these could be incorporated in a way that only displays these effects for users on 'high' or 'med' settings. Low graphics settings would forgo these effects all together.

This is obviously a non-urgent issue, merely a suggestion that I hope might be considered at a later time.

Mon, 07/11/2011 - 04:55

Nikith

not a bad idea

Mon, 07/11/2011 - 04:59

Repair

I actually like this idea :o

Mon, 07/11/2011 - 11:48

Pelikins

Legacy Username

/signed GREAT IDEA!

/signed

GREAT IDEA!

Mon, 07/11/2011 - 13:12

Criminale

Legacy Username

Adding weapon effects never

Adding weapon effects never hurts, but consider the strain particle effects have on computer power when your in an area with so many people like New Haven. Yes, they could tier off graphic settings, but what about when something such as PvP comes out? There would be complaints from low graphic settings people because they can't see their opponents, "specail effect", and be prepared for it.

Much like Runescape, a drawpoint of SK is its accesibility to so many people regardless of computing power.

Mon, 07/11/2011 - 14:44

Vermilicious

Legacy Username

Some kind of shiny effect

Some kind of shiny effect would be cool. Maybe also for 5* gear, or gradually shinier the higher the grade.

Tue, 07/12/2011 - 03:29

Cogspin

Legacy Username

Many popular weapons and

Many popular weapons and armor pieces are already shiny, and added shininess would probably look weird or be redundant. How would I tell if my weapon has the little lightning bolts from an ASI if my Mercurial armor is already doing its best tesla coil impression? How would a mist reconcile with the red glow that's already around Volcanic armor types? And what on earth would happen if we added even more particles to the Sealed/Faust/Avenger lines, which are mostly particles anyway?

This suggestion has additional implications for the additional inclusion of PvP, as well. It would give away what kind of stuff I'm resistant to at a very quick glance if I wear my UVs on my sleeve, so to speak.

Tue, 07/12/2011 - 06:10

Koffin-Kat

"I thought it would be a good

"I thought it would be a good cosmetic addition to the game if equipment that possessed unique variants displayed some visual effect when equipped."

That'd be pretty cool ;)
I like those little "cosmetic effects" in other games, and I'd like to see it here in SK as well :)

I so love the shining halo above the Divine Veil and Valkyria helm (if it's the correct name) and it'd be good to have more nice and shiny pieces of equipment :))

Tue, 07/12/2011 - 06:42

Fallout

I just think it'd be cool to

I just think it'd be cool to have cosmetic UV's without needing bonuses..... i always wanted a gold plate Nitronome....
but still an awesome idea.

Tue, 07/12/2011 - 08:59

Zeenzee

Cosmetic enhancement as

Cosmetic enhancement as suggested here has been successfully implemented in many F2P games.

It can be used as a tool to add prestige to rare or hard-to-get items, and can add another dimension to alchemy.

@fredman86 you are right it's not a necessity right now, but I think when PvP is introduced it will be a necessity. It's important in some circumstances to make visible what you are going to be up against, and prepare (especially if full inspect is turned off).

Personally, I'm not so bothered about the 'looks' of my items as I am the function. In fact, in these sorts of games I quite like to be quietly strong under dull-looking gear, and surprise even the most flashy of players with a decent combo of gear and skill.

Even with my last two statements being somewhat contradictory, overall it would be foolish for Three Rings not to adopt the cosmetic aspect of alchemy, because lets face it most people who play these games love to show-off their gear in town.

fredman86, I would rest assured this will be in an upcoming patch sometime soon, because people will 'pay' to look good* =]

Oh and with regard to knights looking rather similar, costumes/avatars are probably being designed right now for our delectation.

Zeenzie

*from my experiences in other F2P games, there is always a certain percentage of people who will pay through the nose to be the first to have something, and then show it off. I'm sure Three Rings would love to sell them some more CE to do so =P

Thu, 07/14/2011 - 09:49

#10

Effrul

By and large I'm with Cogspin

By and large I'm with Cogspin on this. My concern about this is that, visually, there's potential for avatars to get extremely busy. This is less of a problem with relatively clean sets like Silvermail, but what if you craft a Shock-resist Vog Cub Coat? Lightning flickering around the fiery texture could be kind of a mess. And what about items that already have glowmaps, like the Owlite line or the Volcanic Plate Shield?

I definitely agree that some sort of visual distinction for UVs could be really, really cool, but I'm not entirely convinced that environmental-type effects are necessarily the way to do it. What about physical differences in the crafted items? SK's models are obviously...kind of dinky, so there's not a lot of room to go adding loads of greebles. But, for an example of what I'm talking about, compare Fallout: New Vegas' Remnant Armour to the unique-variant Gannon Family Armour - and even that's going kind of overboard for models at SK's proportions. But attach a little armour plate with a miniature Tesla coil on to an item somewhere, and you've got a clear visual indication of a Shock Resist UV. Add some extra armour plating for a Normal damage bonus, or, I dunno, a stole with Sealed Sword-esque inscriptions for Curse resistance (or Shadow damage bonus). You get the idea - it's about altering the armour itself in small but significant ways, rather than slapping an effect on it. It's more work to implement, but I think it'd be a much more satisfying solution.

This obviously gets trickier when you apply it to weapon models, which by and large are a little too small for such things, and besides which have a larger pool of UVs to draw from, what with the damage bonuses for different monster families - I suspect they'd either be best left alone, or limited to very broad visual modifications (i.e. one overarching visual mod each for ASI, CTI or Damage Vs).

Thu, 07/14/2011 - 09:48

#11

Effrul

Having just completed a

Having just completed a particularly hectic (and thus shield-happy) T3 run, it struck me that environmental effects for UVs do have one natural home - shields. Not the shields themselves, but the shield bubble that's deployed when you actually use it. As long as the effects didn't interfere overmuch with the colour-coded shield health, I could see environmental effects looking really cool sparking off the fields.

Thu, 07/14/2011 - 10:09

#12

Thoranhippo

Great idea, 100% for it.

Thu, 07/14/2011 - 10:31

#13

Alston

Legacy Username

Cool

Best idea eva!

Thu, 07/14/2011 - 12:06

#14

Ghret

I agree with Effrul. Whilst

I agree with Effrul. Whilst there does seem to be a lot of arguements surrounding weapon UV, Shields seem to be a better answer. Maybe the shield bubble doesn't need extra particle effects, maybe all it needs is to have the entire bubble replaced by the UV element i.e. shadow=wispy, swirling buuble, Fire=obvious fire effect, shock=crackling bubble, etc, etc. (If I have missed any, as I know I have, please feel free to add them)

And by entire bubble I mean the visual bubble itself is removed and replaced by the aforementioned effects, allowing the colour to remain as an indicator.

AN finally, please remember that these are suggested as a SUGGESTION, meaning that they don't have to do this immeadiately; just whenever they have a LOT of spare time.

Sat, 03/17/2012 - 14:11

#15

No-Thanks

Zelda

i would turn my graphics to maximum if i it made my unique variants look...unique

Sat, 03/17/2012 - 14:21

#16

Softhead

Necro much!?

Sigh....

Sat, 03/17/2012 - 14:42

#17

No-Thanks

Zelda

#16 im not sure what exactly the title of ur recents posts directed towards my posts is supposed to do other than pointing out the obvious, but its starting to bother me

exactly how am i supposed to express, that i like an outdated suggestion, without creating an own thread and without having u write ur pointless crap?

answer me that question and ill adjust my future posts accordingly, ty

Sat, 03/17/2012 - 15:57

#18

Severage

@No-Thanks:

Easy.

[1] Ctrl + C OP, Ctrl + V in new thread.

[2] Put appropriate title.

[3] ????

[4] Profit.

~Sev

Sun, 03/18/2012 - 07:52

#19

Kentard

+0.25

I do find this pretty neat, but there are three main problems with this; at least from my perspective.

1. Particle effects contributing to graphical lag. As much as we would like shinier weapons, rendering particles (in any game, unfortunately) takes up immense processing power, nevermind the fact that there is already lag inherent in the network.
Of course, we could overcome this by having an option to turn off particle effects in the settings (which we don't really have at the moment).

2. Rarity.
I'm really not too keen on seeing people with ASI Low weapons strut around with extra-glowy weapons.
As much as I think cosmetic enhancement is vital for prestige, I don't think everyone with a UV should have one - maybe restrict it to those with UV High or above?
If prestige is what you're after, I suppose it's only fair to have a certain standard for prestige.

3. Multiple UVs
Now taking points one and two into consideration, what if some lucky soul gets, say, an ASI High, CTR Very High and a Damage Increase Very High on his weapon? If I were him, I wouldn't want all three particle effects to show on the weapon - it'd look way too messy.
Question is, which one of the effects will show, and how do we quantify which effect is displayed?

Sun, 03/18/2012 - 12:19

#20

No-Thanks

Zelda

instead of giving a different visual/cosmetic effect to each uv, they could assign different effects to the mixture of uvs, eg:

the mixture of all dominant uvs in any order could determine the shape and color of the visual/cosmetic effect independently of each single uv
the amount of uvs could affect the size of the effect

and lastly

the magnitude of all uvs summed up together(1x low lowest, 3x max highest) could determine the glowing intensity

this example should solve most of the 3 main problems:

the graphical lag would be intense with many players around, but unless there are situations, in which you need high performance, while being surrounded by big crowds, an on off switch for cosmetic effects wouldnt be necessary. i dont have enough experience to tell, how big the lag will be in pvp, but i usually have lag when placing a nitronome for once. after that the bomb doesnt lag at all and if that principle applies to the cosmetic effects, then the room, in which everybody waits, before the game starts, should prevent most of the lag
while this example of a possible configuration for cosmetic effects doesnt assign a strong glow to low uvs, there is still the issue of dmg bonus against monster family uvs having too strong glow. this could be solved by drastically lowering their contribution to the glow with the justification of ctr and asi having effect against 6 times as many monster plus non monster family characters including players
for recognitions sake, they could add different characteristics of each uv, not congruently, but with basic structures, to the mixture effects of uvs

if above sounds plausible, then its clearly not an issue with the idea itself, but merely the tedious work of the developers, with which we dont have to bother. they will do it themselves if they decide to pick up the idea

i hope i won +0.75 (:, but id be happy with a 0.25 too lol

Mon, 03/19/2012 - 00:37

#21

Kentard

Actually...

i dont have enough experience to tell, how big the lag will be in pvp
With reference to particle effects, I observe that Furnace levels (with shadow fire that spawns a particle effect) have a noticeably greater amount of lag than the rest. I'm sure I'm not the only one with the same sentiment, as I've asked numerous other Lockdown players, most replying that Furnace is their least favorite map owing to the Shadow Fire.
That being said, yes, lag generated from the spawning of particle effects still have to be taken into consideration. Granted maybe not everyone will dash around with VH UV weapons, but just two or three guys running around with them can make a difference in terms of how long it takes to render all graphics, including particle effects. And don't forget, we have shiny weapons, shiny armor, shiny helmets, heck, even shiny shields? Dear me, my eyes (not to mention my computer processor) would start burning.

instead of giving a different visual/cosmetic effect to each uv, they could assign different effects to the mixture of uvs
Again, possible, but it'd involve too many permutations of effects for combined UVs. Given that you can have up to 3 UVs, we can have hundreds of permutations (pardon me if I overestimated a little; I can't really be bothered to do the proper calculations) of effects for each combination available - on the developers' part, that'd take a little too long to produce.

the magnitude of all uvs summed up together(1x low lowest, 3x max highest) could determine the glowing intensity
I do agree with this point, but then again like I mentioned, I don't think there should even be a glow for UVs that are fairly common, that is to say Lows and Meds.

for recognitions sake, they could add different characteristics of each uv, not congruently, but with basic structures, to the mixture effects of uvs
this could be solved by drastically lowering their contribution to the glow with the justification of ctr and asi having effect against 6 times as many monster plus non monster family characters including players
I'm sorry, but I have absolutely no idea what you're going on about at this part. Care to be a bit more specific?

if above sounds plausible, then its clearly not an issue with the idea itself, but merely the tedious work of the developers, with which we dont have to bother.
It's not just "the tedious work of the developers"; you have to consider that such an idea will inevitably lead to graphical lag on the server, coupled with the pre-existent lag factors that we have yet to resolve.
I do think this is an interesting solution. But you must consider the implications on the players themselves - as much as I would like shinier weapons I'd prefer if they were implemented with as little lag as possible.
And when the lag comes, trust me, you will have to bother.

Tue, 03/20/2012 - 20:01

#22

Hexzyle

Like Torchlight?

Like Torchlight? :D

http://www.straferight.com/forums/attachments/role-playing/17863d1262301...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v484/WeXMajors/Torchlight.jpg
http://img.diytrade.com/cdimg/562387/12722423/0/1273152259/HID_Xenon_Tor...
http://i973.photobucket.com/albums/ae214/yetidomwar/LOL/Torchlight2010-0...

Tue, 03/20/2012 - 21:32

#23

Kentard

*sigh*

Yes, like Torchlight. And looking at the particle effects involved, I'd say it'd be a pain to have every other guy out there with UV Low on everything run around with shiny armor, not to mention possible accessory effects like glows.
Your processor will. Die.

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Unique Variants displaying cosmetic effects.