Armor Coating what we know now

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I have no idea what information some people think we need to have a "fair" opinion on the coating system. Players no longer have the ability to freely customize their armor colors and colors are tied to specific coatings. Short of having thousands of coatings, which seems unlikely, players simply are not getting the same number of combinations they could under the traditional system. There may well be a greater variety of materials and colors packed into any 1 coating, but the possibility is high that you just going to be out of luck if 343 doesn't include a coating that otherwise matches your preferences. Also the assertion that colors are somehow inextricably linked to individual coatings is laughable PR spin. Its actually kind of insulting. 343 could have implemented a system which takes advantage of the extra layers in coatings to give players more freedom than ever before, but they chose not to.As for the monetization aspect, it doesn't matter if you can technically earn all content for free. The entire point of a F2P system is the understanding that players get something with no upfront cost in exchange for devs being able to push more aggressive and outwardly manipulative monetization. F2P Infinite multiplayer will be designed to be frustrating in one way or another in order to encourage players to spend more money, which is why I don't like the decision to go F2P in the first place(among other things). The idea that coatings are not going to play a role in Infinite's monetization is frankly naïve, especially when we already have branded coatings out in the wild.. The fact is that player's no longer have the ability to freely customize their color scheme and that change benefits the corporate bottom line not the playerbase. The way some folks are trying to frame the obvious backlash as some sort of knee-jerk reaction is absurd when 343(or MS it doesn't really matter) are the ones swinging the reflex hammer right into our tendons. It is a case of a very clear cause creating a very predictable and understandable effect.

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This is 100% what we know:

• There is no customization of colors.
• Colors are part of a preset texture (aka shaders aka coatings) that would be applied to your spartan.
• Coatings will also have a pattern (1 of the 7 layers that are "baked-in") that will not be customizable.
• Emblems are split up with ones for your Armor and a separate one for your Player (also require different unlocks).

Purely based on that information, the system is terrible. Roughness/wear/tear will also apparently be one of the 7 layers, so now add that to the others and the odds are high to obtain coatings that you simply don't like. To have a system that allows for all possible combinations of that "7-layered baked-in texture" would be an astronomical amount of different coatings needed. Even if they are easy to acquire, this will bloat the interface horrendously.