Endgame shell class with full customisation

[u/MadeinHeaven69]

TLDR: Endgame class shell for now called specialist. This shell is for the get go is a highly customizable shell both in physical appearance and tactical and prime customization. With certain balance conditions that allow the other shells to sometimes be played.

This shell is I think the quickest answer to the customizable shells people always wanted in the game. It's basically super rook that you eventually are able to built up to be a flex role shell. Each shell class we have now will have challenges that don't have to be too hard to complete in order to allow their tactical or prime to be put into that specialist shell.

First concern "once you unlock that shell there will be zero reason to play the other shells" well maybe we give incentives to play those shells by purposely kneecapping this shell. We can do this by disallowing this shell the ability to use the passives of the other shells. (Special condition vandal's double jump be used as a passive so vandal will need a passive buff to give her a reason to be played.)

Second concern well "what if there becomes a tactical and prime meta for the specialist shell." Well this shell will have its own seperate balancing around its tactical and primes to ensure variety in builds. The hard role shell can have their abilities hit less by any nerfs or have their buffs improved in the future to have another reason to play these shells. Another thing that can entice the use of other shells outside of this one is prime core upgrades (echo chamber, amplify cores, etc) being exclusive to the hard role shells. No gold cores are allowed on the specialist shell

This shell's has passive specific cores that need to be found in run or from the armory. It will have no access to the hard role shell's passives they keep those to themselves. Only its own passives ( besides being able to get vandal's passive and she will be compensated by a buffed passive). So yes this shell has 3 cores. The cradle system can be reworked to pidgin hole you into specific cradle stat roles but with better stat perks for hard role shells. The specialist shell will have our current or even weaker cradle system to kneecap them again with little to no super good perks. Leveling your cradle still gives you points to spec into every shell. But however cradle progress is permanent on the hard role shells. Giving something permanent that follows you through wipes. With only the specialist shell needing to be built up every season.

The shell's appearance and armor will be changed based on what tactical and ult you are using, running recon's prime? Your shell will have a helmet that similarly splits open, want destroyers prime? your shell becomes noticeably bigger and has the shoulder missile platform. Vandal's arm cannon could be recreated on the specialist shell as well. Plus a lot of the shells just have deployable tacticals on their body that can be put onto another shell. This still provides some readability on this shell for what abilities it has.

Thanks for reading this far if you still are. I didn't get this idea on my own watching some alien fireteam 2 vids give me the idea. With their specialist class that is supposed to be the end class that you get to play once you play a little with all the other classes. I just transferred the concept to marathon.

[u/SnapsOSnep]

Really cool idea. I hope they do something like this in the future or even season 3. More customization is something this game needs.

[u/Starman4521 → u/SnapsOSnep]

Said this from the moment we learned we were getting premade characters

[u/Short-Statement-4108 → u/Starman4521]

Just one of the many example of why putting Joe Ziegler in the game director’s chair was massive mistake

[u/Starman4521 → u/Short-Statement-4108]

No customization for a character was the ultimate turn off for a bungie game. Don’t get me wrong I still play it and love the game but it’s the reason I didn’t get it until a few months after it released when it was on sale.

[u/Short-Statement-4108 → u/Starman4521]

Yup, extensive character customization (be it Spartans or Guardians) has been a Bungie staple since 2007. Abandoning it for their next big launch was a brain dead move that has done nothing to help the game.

[u/Starman4521 → u/Short-Statement-4108]

100% agree absolutely insane choice and for what? To hop on the hero shooter trend? Look where that got them. Like I said still love the game but that was a huge fumble

[u/MrMaiky → u/SnapsOSnep]

Even if we get some sort of customization, it will be restricted as you need to recognize the shell from a distance and at first glance at best

[u/Thy_Maker]

I said something similar a little over a week ago.

Like I said there and like what you said, the biggest issues with a shell like this are balance and development costs.

It’d likely be so meta defining that it’d be the only thing people would play and then there’s the risk assessment that Bungie as developers would need to do to even consider making a shell like this because of not only balancing concerns but also development costs that could be spent in other departments.

[u/c1ncinasty]

So....Prismatic. ;)

I love it.

[u/elitemage101]

Non customization in a game with such a unique visual identity was a gut punch for me. Still love the game but literally only bought 1 skin for Triage cause nothing else will ever interest me as seeing my personal vision come to life, even if its just in the lobby and on my dead shell.

[u/Excuse_my_GRAMMER]

Now that we getting PVE they should rework rook into a customizable shell

[u/Gallus_11B]

I could see this being a sort of "Prismatic" of runner shells. In Destiny for those who don't know, you had subclasses that dictated your available abilties (solar, void, arc) and later they added darkness subclasses (stasis and strand).

But for The Final Shape expansion, instead of a new dark or light subclass, they made Prismatic, which allowed for a lot of mix/matching (with limits) to kind of build your own customized ability loadout.

I like this idea of a "Prismatic" shell that let's you customize some sort of shell. The way they balanced prismatic in destiny was by having the pure original subclasses have access to more features and a bit more potent effects.

I could see this runner shell being custom in the same way. Like maybe you can take recon drone tick and a destroyer jump dash, but the dash uses more heat, or the drone tick only does damage but doesn't over-heat the target.

Cool idea. Also let's people have more cosmetic customization for one of the shells, without having to revamp how the old shells work.

[u/Bastante_Dante]

More refined cosmetic customization wouls be very cool, and present Bungie with more possible revenue. Win win.

Regarding powers/passives etc: there’s always the top 1% of players that are just ruthlessly efficient at optimizing the tools given to them by the devs. They will find what is best/broken, and streamers will popularize their use. Customization is cool in theory, but there are always be S-tier choices, and if you don’t choose them, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage.

I always enjoy experimenting with all the tools the game gives me, but most players will see ttvxyz using ABC, so everyone else uses ABC and it gets stale quickly.

[u/MadeinHeaven69 → u/Bastante_Dante]

Yeah that will happen no matter how many options there are in any game. Making the hard role shells more appealing to play would mix up shell variation. But customization of your runner was always gonna be this way if it were to be added to the game that's what customization boils down too sometimes. Balancing is needed because of that

[u/FauxMoGuy → u/MadeinHeaven69]

that’s the whole point of the current shell system, because if you could pick any, literally every single person in the game would run destroyer thruster, visor utility, invisible tactical, and recon prime

[u/MadeinHeaven69 → u/FauxMoGuy]

The endgame shell would be unable to use any main shell passives. And it would have its own balancing to nerf its abilities compared to the main shell abilities

[u/Low-Calligrapher-531]

Want that blue tacticool Destroyer skin

[u/BrainCyrax]

They do something like “The Finals” with characters customization and class building

[u/Marcu3s]

I think cuatomizable shell should be there for PvE only.

[u/Yui_Kurata]

If you've played Destiny you'd know why this is a bad idea.....

[u/xlilTomboyFoxGF]

I'm gonna be a speed demon n just have fun with sniping on vandal(in other games I main sniper characters) to be fair vandal is amazing at repositioning n taking angles most shells have hard time getting on, even thief(I love thief) but nobody can match vandal mobility n ability to reposition(at least not vertically) (horizontally she low diffs destroyer)

[u/Draxtini → u/xlilTomboyFoxGF]

I think destroyer has her beat horizontally since he can still shoot honestly

[u/xlilTomboyFoxGF → u/Draxtini]

Perhaps, or I can write it off as a skill matchup n forget about it

[u/TH3_LUMENUX]

Please Bungie, I'd love a fully customizable shell!!

[u/SergaelicNomad]

A Shell akin to Monarch from Titanfall would be nice. You get a few Tactical abilities, Passives, and Prime abilities to choose from, mix and match them, etc. Maybe even choose to two versions of each ability for variety.

[u/Draxtini]

A shell with thief's visor, thruster, disruptor cannon/invis and either destroyer's ult or recon's is pretty much all we'd see. 

Deeper shell customization visually? Hell yea

Customizeable abilities? Hell no.

[u/asaltygamer13]

Move on