So far, we all have pretty agreed that coatings were not the best decision for color customization for our spartans. Though some coatings do look really nice and unique, with special patterns or looking shiny, they pretty much limit to what your spartan can look like, especially if you used specific colros for your spartan in past games that your preferred. And whats worse is that most coatings are locked behind cores.
What I think 343 should do, is give us the option to use the old color customization option, which was a primary color, secondary, and maybe even a tertiary. This would allow us to give a better choice of colors rather than be locked to a coating that we are just “ok” with. Basically how reach had its color customization options. And to add on to the color options would be other color palettes, such as glossy or metallic colors that weve seen for coatings.
As for coatings, the best thing they could do for the is make them more unique, more patterns, such as a Hot Rod coating where you spartan is painted primarily black or navy blue with reddish orange flame along the arms and legs. Of course the unique coatings would be in the store, but i believe they price should be relatively cheap, like $1.
It’s easy to do. The Coatings have like 7 or so boxes and point to certain armor pieces. They can just add a Custom Coating Palette where you can identify available colors which you have unlocked from other Coatings, then point each one to an armor piece.
If Brian Reed can become Narrative Director while having no talent in writing whatsoever, then it should be easy for a man of my level of competence despite my level of procrastination to become the Franchise Director and begin fixing a lot of the unnecessary issues that have plagued Halo since 2011.
I personally would love for coatings to have colors that are fully customizable. I’ve seen a few different proposed UI changes that could allow this. If they won’t give us full customization they could at least give us a few different color options per coatings like we get with emblems. I just want colors to feel more like a player choice. I don’t think the understood how much choice mattered to people. It doesn’t matter if we have a billion coatings eventually, none of them will feel as personal as choosing colors if we have no say in how they look.
The answer is a resounding YES, and I can’t believe 343 or MS couldn’t think of (or hire) someone to figure this out. All they had to do was sell the patterns (Flames, Camouflage, etc) then let player either change all 6 panels on the color wheel thing or, if that’s too complicated, only allow the changing of the two most prominent colors (like H5’s Foehammer Armor). THEN they could have sold textures like mud, scratches, shine, plasma burns, or Hunter blood to go on top of the coatings.
But instead they chose to spend their time selling the color red, charging quadruple on emblems and forcing anyone who wants to wear white to walk around with piss staining their armor.
Could they coexist on a technical level? Absolutely. But given that allowing the player to edit the entire pallet of the coating would completely remove the need for another coating, why would they do it in a FTP game that relies on cosmetic sales?
To find a compromise I could see them adopting the system to where what you buy isn’t coatings but blank pallets that you customize and lock in, so if you ever want a different color scheme they’d still make some money off you.
Anthem had one of the best cosmetic systems available, but I’d only ever see something so robust being included in a full-priced game.
That would be the closest I could think of by way of comparison, but instead of charging for the color pallet give us the full wheel to play with and just charge for the coating “blank”. Could even have different grades of blanks. Basic would just be flat, color choice only, higher grades would allow for texture selection along with the color choices, highest grade approaching Anthem level customization.
There are definitely options that can still make them money.
Well, I’m sure that coatings initially were meant to be fully color customizable, but they made the decision to either lock it, or not program it that way.
Because we’ve actually “had” the system since Halo 2, just with two-three colors and one Armor Coat.
Money is the deciding factor here.
It’s far easier for them to churn out repeat coats than make new ones on a constant basis.
Absolutely. Many of us from the beginning have noted that Coatings for weapons and vehicles are more or less fine as is. Coatings for armor still could’ve offered plenty of options for new patterns, camos, wear and dirt, and more (we see coatinga do other stuff like tweak the fabric/texture of the undersuit, etc) while letting us customize the colors within.
Right now, the coating system is a stingy, money grubbing shadow of what it could be and a downgrade in nearly way from simply letting us freely pick colors.
Armor coatings should encompass pattern designs, finishes, wear and things of the like with the ability for players to choose the colors (or in some cases presets) within the armor coating parameters.
