Any chance we could get Spinal’s shapeshift or morph as an ender?
Patch it in maybe? That was literally my favourite thing about him.
That’s a lot easier said than done. It’s not something you can just “patch in”. The amount of programming that would take would staggering.
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I’m not convinced. Elaborate on how it’d be staggering.
Mainly the utility. All of Spinal’s current enders were specifically made to accommodate his playstyle. In fact, enders in this game as a whole were changed from the previous games to where they actually have unique properties rather than just damage. Do you want some more meter? Use a battery ender. Do you want more setup opportunities? Go for a hard knockdown or launcher ender. etc. etc.
Basically what I saying is by giving spinal the ability to morph into other character’s enders, you’re giving him the ability to a unique property that he really doesn’t need just for the sake of looking cool. Which depending on the character he changes into, can either put him at a major advantage or disadvantage. Thus lopsiding his matchups and messing with the game’s balance.
From what I’ve read, the morphing only existed in the first place because [Rare] had to save on RAM, so they re-used existing assets for Spinal’s enders. Now that RAM isn’t an issue, Spinal gets to be his own, complete, unique character.
“Patching it in” would first require they remove his current ender animation(s), animate 25(-100, if there is to be variation between ender level) transitions (this could be shortcutted), program the new ender animations to trigger, program and apply the RNG necessary for the morph, and go through more than a hundred different enders to balance what can come from where and how, while maintaining balance within context of his current kit, and adjusting where necessary. Then there is having to account for it in the lore. Why would a skeleton even be a shapeshifter in the first place?
Sounds like a whole lotta work to nostalgically pay homage to a cost-saving measure from a time well behind us.
EDIT: I know very little about programming, so I’m sure it’s not simple as I’ve described. Almost guaranteed to have missed several steps, and we’re already looking at a huge investment of time.
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Everyone is so negative on this forum. Always shooting down people’s ideas. I for one would like his shapeshifting to return as an ultimate.
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I am not trying to be negative in the least but I prefer how he is now without the shapeshifting. I think shapeshifting would be better off given to an all knew character who can be entirely based around it like old school Shang Tsung. I still think it would be hard though.
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But the OP meant for it as an regular ender not an ultimate. Due to how the game’s enders is structured now, the negatives of this change, as far as gameplay and balance is concerned, outweigh the positives.
You know, I wouldn’t necessarily say the negativity rests solely on the people shooting down wildly unnecessary and ludicrous requests.
Would it be nice to have Spinal’s shapeshift as an ender animation or ultimate? Yes.
Would this be a feasable investment, given additional stages cost too much to consider and this would require several character textures and models for the final shapeshift and transitions back and forth, as well as call into question Ultimates as a whole for the rest of the cast and require even more investment when, as a reference, a few stages are too much to consider at this point? No.
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It’s not coming back. The reason Spinal doesn’t shapeshift is because the Xbox One is unable to store more than two models in memory. The only solution would be to make an ender that Spinal would morph into the same character as his opponent but that would involve some heavy coding, potential balance issues and removing an existing ender.
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To be fair, if they were to give everyone an ultimate, that would be the perfect opportunity to tip their hats at nostalgia.
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That is correct as far as I know, except I think you mean Rare, not DH.
But yeah, Spinal was technically an incomplete character due to RAM limitations, so they slapped on his opponent’s enders in grayscale to save space.
IMHO I never really liked the old Spinals. I much rather prefer how they have made him in this game. He is his own creature now.
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Sorta confused pls elaborate. Nostalgia like as in give spinal a classic ultimate ? Or his shapeshifting ?
Nope. Same as Cinder w/ his invisibility powers. Thunder with the phoenix. Yada… It’s gone forever. 
Well, I guess both, but by “nostalgia” I meant the shapeshifting.
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How do you mean? The OP threw out an idea and people were responding with practical reasons as to why it’s not feasible. That’s not really negative to me. It’s not like anyone said “that’s stupid” or “you’re dumb for suggesting that.” That, to me, is much more negative than saying “here’s why that likely can’t happen” and then elaborating on it.
I think that’d be really cool to see too. Perhaps the Djinn character could have some sort of ability to steal a specific move from their opponent? I agree that actually morphing in to other characters would be difficult, but I like the way you’re thinking here!
Yeah, I think that giving Spinal the ability to morph in to a gray version of his opponent and do their own ultimate on them would be pretty fun. I don’t know if that would cause issues given that Spinal has his own rig versus other characters that have their own rig, but if there were a way to do this without having to make it an insane production on the part of IG, I’d be all for it.
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Lol of course the xbox can handle that… its a design choice not to have him morphing including play style. Spinal is his own character unlike before when the morphing was used to save memory. It they want led him to have it they would have done.
Double Helix mentioned that back during the season 1 days, I’m not making it up. I think they understand the Xbox One’s capabilities better than the general public.
@OregonPacifist is right. I don’t know if you’ve played any of Shadow Lords yet, but I have noticed several hiccups in the game where it struggles to load up some of the new modifiers. It’s rather jarring.
…however, even back in the original Spinal didn’t just turn into a random player. He only morphed into his opponent, which was already pre-loaded into the ram.
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Not a spinal player at all but I really like that idea