Why not add in purchasable, alternate skins for some combat animations?

[Dyvim]

The cartel market is great for new weapon skins, armor skins, crystal colors, and a variety of character customizations...emotes, hair styles, species unlocks, etc. I also VERY much appreciate the trend towards direct CC purchase of desirable items over gambling with packs. Since they are skins, players can use them, discard them after a while, whatever.

 

Why not add in animation "skins" for some abilities to further allow us to customize the feel and play appearance of our toons? This game has mirrored classes. Essentially identical abilities across factions, with just different animations. Now that PvP is mixed faction (based on light side vs darkside instead of republic vs sith), keeping the strict animation differences between factions/classes doesn't seem as important as player choice to tailor their toon's abilities. As a Pub, when I see lightning now, or pebbles flying around, it doesn't automatically mean friend or foe anymore.

 

There are SEVERAL opportunities to offer new skins for abilities in this game for different classes. I think it would be a really fun way for BW to offer more cartel market items for sale that players would be glad to buy. Kind of like kicking the hutt ball. So the concept already exists. Kick the huttball "reskins" throwing the huttball...my idea is the same thing and could work the same way. There it acts as a "buff" you click on in inventory. You could create a package for each class or whatever, that when clicked, reskins a few abilities, temporarily, and the user can revert to the originals at anytime.

 

The easiest example is with Shadow/Sin tanks. Many sith are tired of nonstop lightning. With so many abilities that use lightning, it is hard to keep them distinctive. Many pubs are tired of junk tossing. But both sets of animations are fun. Why not allow Sith to purchase a skin for shock that tosses junk like project (project has a list of art assets that are used as projectiles, you could simply replace the list with a SITH version of selected items...you know, more evil...instead of droid arms, actual arms, instead of jedi holocrons, sith holocrons, etc.). Should be very easy. NO stats would change, ONLY appearance. Essentially the skill would just call a different fxspec file.

 

Then for Project you could offer Electric Spark to shadows, a canon Jedi version of lightning that is green. Luke Skywalker used it. Or it used to be canon, not sure now with Disney and the EU debacle. "A Jedi sufficiently strong in the Force can be trained to produce a facsimile, but not true Sith lightning." ―Darth Plagueis

 

Similarly, you look at depredating volts and cascading debris...basically channeled, looped versions of shock and project. Offer Sith a version to replace the ad nauseam lightning with sith style junk tossing, and offer Jedi Electric Judgment, aka Emerald Fire, a channeled green lightning skin. I would pay a lot of cartel coins to have the option to customize the appearance of my toon's skills.

 

So, for packaging, you could sell a "Kinetic Malevolence" Buff that would change the two Sin skills, and an "Electric Judgment" buff that would reskin the two Shadow skills, for example. Of course, the beauty of the proposal, development-wise, is that you are using EXISTING assets. Existing art. The game was DESIGNED around mirrored classes and reskinned abilities.

 

The main thing, game-wise, that has changed is the mixed pvp. Pubs are used to fighting WITH lightning users now, not just against them, and SITH are used to fighting WITH junk tossers now, not just against them. So the idea of keeping appearances cookie cutter faction-wise, no longer seems important compared to the market potential of allowing players to buy some combat animation skins. The skins would still be distinctive (e.g., green lightning), and would fit with star wars lore. After all, Sith loved to throw things at people...and there would still be more than enough visual cues for quick, easy class identification for people that don't pvp...double bladed sabers, sniper rifle, two sabers vs. one, etc., etc. After 8 years, people really understand that the mirrored classes are two sides of the same coin...maras and sents, shadows and sins, jugg and guards, sorcs and sages, etc.

Edited January 18, 2019 by Dyvim