General Gaming Why do all games seem to use the same colour coding for the rarity of their gear?

[Brick]

I guess Destiny was the first game I noticed this in, but now it seems any game that has any kind of loot uses the same colours to denote how rare/good the items are. White, then green, then blue, then purple for the best, unless there is also yellow/gold super items. Seriously every game does this and I keep noticing it; Black Ops III, the new Assassin's Creed games, Battlefield V, even mobile games. Who decided that purple should be the best?! What was the first game to do this? Diablo? Borderlands? It must have been a popular game for everyone to copy. 

[skillzdadirecta]

Wan't it Diablo that did it first? I think I read somewhere that it's visual short hand now so that gamers could tell at a glance the rarity of gear in loot games. I'm not sure but I do think it was Diablo that did it first.

[Bacon]

Because that is what people go use to. WoW has had it like this since launch and that is omega popular and so many people have at least tried it. Not sure if it was the first game to do that order, but I'd bet WoW is the reason. Everyone who plays even one game basically knows the color scheme and instantly knows the rarity in all other games. No point in getting people to learn something new. 

[skillzdadirecta]

1 minute ago, Bacon said:

Because that is what people go use to. WoW has had it like this since launch and that is omega popular and so many people have at least tried it. Not sure if it was the first game to do that order, but I'd bet WoW is the reason. Everyone who plays even one game basically knows the color scheme and instantly knows the rarity in all other games. No point in getting people to learn something new. 

 

You're right... I think it was WoW that did it first 

[Dodger]

Happened in the same meeting where we all agreed that grab attacks are non blockable usually short ranged for good damage. 

[PaladinSolo]

Diablo actually has its own, it's blue, yellow, gold, green/orange? I think purple is in there somewhere too. I means it's not earth shattering different. 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

I don’t mind the color scheme used across all games. Keeps it simple. 
 

what bothers me is having to change my lingo every time I move to another loot game. That needs to be uniform too. 
 

Legendary, Epic, Exotic, Masterwork, have all meant the same tier in different games. 

[TwinIon]

WoW is the game that I feel like popularized that particular color order, and it's been rather standard ever since. I'm not really sure if WoW actually originated it. Diablo 2 had a slightly different color scheme.

 

Giant Bomb credits Diablo 2 for the color coding concept.

[Slug]

I'm speculating, but purple was probably chosen to be just below gold because purple is one of the traditional colors of royalty so culturally we attribute a higher perceived value to those items, just as we immediately know without being told that a gray or white item is dull or "common".

 

The longer answer to the question of why we keep seeing it is because over time such color coding has become part of the "language" of game design that most of us understand.  Using the same design language as spoken across many games allows developers to communicate information effectively with a minimum of actual explanation.  As gamers we understand things instinctually based on, whether we think about it or not, our knowledge of this language.  It's the same reason we intuitively just know without explicitly being told that red indicates damage/health or that long-pressing the jump button will make us jump higher/further.  We can pick up a game that we've never played before and, while we may not be masters, we will be basically competent at it based on use of this language within the game and our ingrained understanding of it.

[legend]

2 hours ago, PaladinSolo said:

Diablo actually has its own, it's blue, yellow, gold, green/orange? I think purple is in there somewhere too. I means it's not earth shattering different. 

 

Diablo (2 at least) is a bit unusual in that some codings are more than just a strict rarity, but kind too.

 

- Grey: common garbage, sell it or don't even bother)

- Blue: has some magic properties

- Yellow: Legendary, many good random properties

- Orange: Unique item (fixed property set, maybe random values though)

- Green: Set item; collect all items in the set to get additional properties.

 

In this set up, it's hard to rank legendary, vs unique, vs set because some times you could get *really* good legendary, and some set and unique just weren't very good.

 

So I think Diablo (2) gets credit for being even a bit more unusual in how item color coding works.

 

D3 continued this to some extent, but last time I played unique tended to be what you would want to make your character with, whereas in D2 it was a bit more nuanced.

[Brick]

I figured it must have been Diablo, and that every game copies it just because it became such a popular system that developers figured there's no point in changing it if players will already know what's better. 

[Nokt]

The original diablo only had white, blue, gold I believe.

Diablo 2 expands but still isn’t quite what the norm is. Green is the outlier here as a set item rather than uncommon. 
 

WoW probably is the earliest game that mirrors current “standards”

[GameDadGrant]

@Slug

 

My thoughts exactly! Purple = royalty, so that means the best rewards. 

[Keyser_Soze]

Turn on the color blind modes for some extra spice for your loot.

[Xbob42]

I hate when games try and change it up, but also use the same colors. Or take the same color but swap a name, like Destiny calling purples legendary even though legendary is the highest tier in WoW. You came up with exotics for the highest tier so come up with something unique for purple gear, too!