CUSTOM POWER COLORS

This is a request to the developers to allow players to customize their super power color on DCUO. It bugs me personally that lightning is yellow in this game instead of blue. And realizing this I’m sure others would like to have the option of changing their power colors too. To both match their outfits and put more of their personalities into their characters.

I’m talking Black Fire. Lava red Earth. Blue/Purple lightning.

And not just the powers, but the MOVEMENTS as well. Blue Speed Force lightning. Like ZOOM from Flash. Or White SF Lightning like Savitar. Colored energy aura when we fly, like in Dragon Ball. This one is a bit of a stretch but I’m still throwing it in here.

The point is, I believe people would appreciate colored powers in this game. This has been done before in Lego DC Villains and I loved it. If it could be done so good there, I’m positive it would be perfect here.

So overdue... We been fed lines about how "iT wOuLd NeGaTiVeLy AfFeCt GaMe BaLaNcE iN pVp," but we know better than that by now.

1.) They clearly don't care about PvP at all, let alone PvP balance.

2.) It wouldn't actually impact the balance at all as seen by numerous other games where abilities can be colored and the colorization freedom hasn't ruined anything of the sort.

3.) This is the big one. We know the system literally cannot support that/the devs can't find a way to implement it, and it's easier to blame something "reasonable" than admit limitations.

Sadly, it's never going to happen unless we revamp pretty much the entire game's engine and systems.

It's been asked for before, and I actually believe either Charon or one of the other devs have actually been discussing it. It would be a very welcome addition it's just the technical hurdles that they'd need to get around might be somewhat daunting.

This is something I want sooo bad

This is less of a technical hurdle rather than a time intensive hurdle. It would probably be no more than a month to get the tech to be able to do this and create the UI to support this. However, we would very likely need to update the art and the shaders of nearly all of the powers to make sure they properly support the color channel. It could very well be less if we get lucky, but it could very well be a mountain of work.

That said, I don't think there is anyone who DOESN'T want it, because its a good idea.

Great to see you on forums again Panderus

OMG! Please please please!

It's been on a request since the beginning! Me want.

No problems with the idea so long as it's equally applied across all powers.

That mountain of work is no longer a concern since the team is growing. Many things we been asking for could very well be brought. Im sure changing colors of powers will only be applied to non lantern powers thus reducing the work. One thing the OP forgot to mention was changing the color of the Nuclear Elite Head Style. When we had the blue flame for fire I thought it was cool because we could have made Death Storm.

IIRC, another issue was getting permission from DC/WB for certain ones. Like the Light/Lantern power. I've heard DC/WB are really adamant about any and all Lantern Corps powers have to be distinct individual powers with distinct abilities and functions instead of letting people just take the single Light power and coloring it for each Corps. No idea how correct that is, though. I'm just some rando player, so I could be entirely mistaken as I have no idea what all goes on with the game's permissions and approvals.

But yeah, one of my pet peeves is that celestial villain toon with the hand blast weapon has all her hand blasts being the cursed purple color automatically due to faction even though she's designed and colored for the divine/life magic end of things. Same for my electric toon who I gave a very blue color scheme because lightning is blue but then her powers are yellow (I know the healing electric abilities are blue while combat is yellow, but this is just a pet peeve/nitpick). So it would be really fun to be able to just make them the colors I want. It would also be cool to see people do spins on the looks of powers based on aspects of that thing irl (as in like blue fire, black ice, RGB gadgets lmao). There's a lot of cool, clever things that could be done with that and it's fun to fantasize. Are there any you'd like to see people do?

Let's be honest, Light and Rage would be exempt for the obvious reason.

And as I've said many times in different threads, exempting any power set is going to cause unnecessary and easily avoidable headaches, especially since those two powers you mentioned have to be paid for.

Fair application is the best way to go. Everyone should be able to get the ability to customize their power colors. If that's not possible, no one should.

I mean, wouldn't that be a great way to give us power colors AND update the power visuals?

It might be possible for some power, but not all, I would understand that an electric player would want to be able to change the color of his electricity, when I played it myself, for a short time, I often wished for blue electricity, but concerning the lantern bodies, it can't be that simple, because each color of green lantern is present and is attached to an emotional spectrum as well and the lanterns receive their power through a ring.

Green lantern is green lantern and so are all the other lantern powers in the game that are currently available and may be coming soon, it should not prevent the arrival of other lantern powers, or at least, the heal lantern power that everyone has been waiting for and asking for for quite some time now!

I know this won't be popular to say, but think of the revenue this could generate. Powerset animation bundles with the ability change colors? Can you imagine how many people would purchase booster bundles for that? If you thought the comix material sold well, it wouldn't even compare to this.

I only say this because I know the financial incentive needs to be there for any "mountain of work."

Players could select the "default" powerset animations and color.
Or they could slot "Arthur Curry's Spicy Atlantean Deluge" water package. Instead of tidal wave, we throw a trident. Instead of sharks, we summon a giant tentacle, etc. Instead of crystal clear water, we can get churning black waters of death, playful pink waters of joy or glowing green tides of Arthur Curry the Green Freaking Lantern.

Ok? You pay to use the powers, not to color them. You pay for Atomic, Quantum, Munitions, Water, Electric, Celestial, and Earth too, but you can color those without needing to hit up DC for permission (which would be far easier to do as well) vs trying to hold back entirely just because 2 specifically colored powers by DC's own lore and design exist.

Not to mention that coloring ring powers is a quick way to get on DC's bad side since it's not so "cut and dry" as changing the color of more generic powers (elemental, magic, tech [gadget/munitions]) since having Orange, White, or Black constructs (when mind you just getting Rage was a hassle, only 1 white and orange lantern can exist at a time, and black can only be worn by the dead) by Light and Rage can easily lead to some headache for the devs by DC for allowing rings to be callously altered just because.

Look at how hard it is just to get them a healer because the devs have to stick to the corp identity for both factions and yet you think that they'll just allow them to color them any shade of the rainbow without getting in trouble? e.o

That would be insanely awesome if the team could pull this off.

Also, I agree with the OP about throwing in the Super Speed lightning effect in with this as well. I missed it the first time I read through, but that has also been requested a ton. Would that be possible?

I don't want it, but I'm crotchety.

DC Comics might have some issues with the Lantern powers ... perhaps varying shades of green/yellow/red would be okay, but - from a lore perspective - I don't see them allowing a Green Lantern to have pink powers.

How would you plan to address the inevitable trolling and mixed messaging

Example people purposely shading AOEs to conceal NPC AOEs

Or rage characters who canonically wouldn't make sense to be anything but red?

I feel that maybe extremely bright colors that can flashbang people (fire, quantum, ice, sorcery) should be limited to maybe dark to middle shade colors or reduce the overall brightness of those powers either in the same patch or before that would drop, but you kind of know where npc aoes are for the most part except for fire (which is kinda muted/transparent anyways) and those friggin punishers in the Hades raids.

Light and Rage by design shouldn't be colorable since virtually every ring is a carbon copy of each other. No real uniqueness between them as far as I know, even by iconic standards. Rayner's ring is no different than Stewart's or Jordan's much like Arkillo's ring is no different than Sinestro's or Hank's (Cyborg Supes has a ring right??).