Let players choose what cosmetic armor type they want to wear for any class

[phokus.8934]

> @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > @"phokus.8934" said:

> > The whole idea of having different armor types is outdated.

> >

> > But we won’t see this restriction removed from GW2.

>

> They said a similar thing about gliding, mounts, capes, even a third expansion.

> Also, once they realize that they can earn tons of money and get ridiculous amounts of playtime for most of their players out of "updating" their old content/rewards, everything is possible

>

 

Gliding, mounts, etc. all provided a revenue stream and expanded the capabilities and functionality of GW2. What does removing the armor types do for ANet?

[Fueki.4753]

> @"phokus.8934" said:

> > @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > > @"phokus.8934" said:

> > > The whole idea of having different armor types is outdated.

> > >

> > > But we won’t see this restriction removed from GW2.

> >

> > They said a similar thing about gliding, mounts, capes, even a third expansion.

> > Also, once they realize that they can earn tons of money and get ridiculous amounts of playtime for most of their players out of "updating" their old content/rewards, everything is possible

> >

>

> Gliding, mounts, etc. all provided a revenue stream and expanded the capabilities and functionality of GW2. What does removing the armor types do for ANet?

 

It's not about removing armour types.

It's about removing the differences in attach points between armour classes, so different armour weight skins can be worn on the same body.

[Drizzt.1796]

I both agree and disagree.

1 for disagree: it would let player's have an advantage over other players say... if you were a Mesmer in heavy armor.

1 for agree: I've recently been trying to find a heavy armor chest piece for my Mesmer to go with the chronomancer epaulets.

Done.

 

[Adenin.5973]

> @"Drizzt.1796" said:

> I both agree and disagree.

> 1 for disagree: it would let player's have an advantage over other players say... if you were a Mesmer in heavy armor.

> 1 for agree: I've recently been trying to find a heavy armor chest piece for my Mesmer to go with the chronomancer epaulets.

> Done.

>

 

I was only talking about cosmetic appearance. Like it's in ESO for example, you can equip light armor and get all its connected armor values and traits of light armor but you can make your character appear like its wearing full heavy armor for example.

[Adenin.5973]

> @"phokus.8934" said:

> > @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > > @"phokus.8934" said:

> > > The whole idea of having different armor types is outdated.

> > >

> > > But we won’t see this restriction removed from GW2.

> >

> > They said a similar thing about gliding, mounts, capes, even a third expansion.

> > Also, once they realize that they can earn tons of money and get ridiculous amounts of playtime for most of their players out of "updating" their old content/rewards, everything is possible

> >

>

> Gliding, mounts, etc. all provided a revenue stream and expanded the capabilities and functionality of GW2. What does removing the armor types do for ANet?

 

As I wrote in my original post already: If they want to make money with it, they can make it so that you would be able to let's say make a Mesmer that can transmutate by default only light armor. Yet they can make a shop item that lets you change that or upgrade that ability, so you can now transmute medium armor or heavy armor on your Mesmer.

 

Depending on how restrictive or greedy Anet is, almost every player that is interested in the fashion wars will now buy 2 additional 1-2k gems of shop items, or maybe even pay way more than that, if they make it so that you have to buy that shop item for every single character and everytime you want to switch appearance between heavy/medium/light (I hope they're not THAT greedy).

 

But you see the potential for how much money they can generate? Because essentially they're locking hundreds (for your class) of cosmetic rewards behind a single shop item and people definitely WANT to get that thing, even if it costs like 2k gems.

 

Also, they are selling already armor skins on the shop and previously you would've bought one for your main character maybe, or none at all, when you didn't like that skin. But now you would have the ability to actually use that heavy armor set that you liked from the shop on your main elementalist and you would buy that one and then also buy the item that lets you switch armor appearance type, which means tons of cash for Anet, without even releasing any new armor sets/content really.

 

Additionally Anet would see potentially way more people playing their game for way longer, due to players now having new goals and cosmetic items that they want to aquire, which suddenly became meaningful to them. And people that play your game and enjoy it are also more likely to buy other stuff.

 

 

Edit: A positive sideeffect of this could also be that the outfits will no longer be developed. I personally believe they are only there because Anet realized that with their heavy/medium/light armor restrictions, they had to put in 3 times the effort to still not make as much money as when they made one single set that everyone could wear. Of course outfits are extremely unpopular for other reasons.

 

But when you have the transmutation restrictions gone, nothing is stopping Anet from selling armor skins again that you can mix and match, because everyone that would've been likely to buy a shop armor skin is already so invested in the fashion game that an additional purchase of an armor type change token on their shop will also not stop them from buying it and Anet now makes more money than ever before.

[Tazer.2157]

Just destroy the role playing experience altogether. A thief in heavy armor blinking around, a warrior in cloth tanking a boss, an elementalist who puts on heavy armor and needs additional protection with earth skills? Um No thank you.

[Adenin.5973]

> @"Tazer.2157" said:

> Just destroy the role playing experience altogether. A thief in heavy armor blinking around, a warrior in cloth tanking a boss, an elementalist who puts on heavy armor and needs additional protection with earth skills? Um No thank you.

 

So you are not aware of outfits?

I sometimes read these comments and wonder whether or not ppl have logged in during the past 5 years

[Tazer.2157]

> @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > @"Tazer.2157" said:

> > Just destroy the role playing experience altogether. A thief in heavy armor blinking around, a warrior in cloth tanking a boss, an elementalist who puts on heavy armor and needs additional protection with earth skills? Um No thank you.

>

> So you are not aware of outfits?

> I sometimes read these comments and wonder whether or not ppl have logged in during the past 5 years

 

Outfits are clearly made to monetize the game. I have no problem with that since the game has to make money somehow. But taking away armor classes altogether is a totally different thing.

[Adenin.5973]

> @"Tazer.2157" said:

> > @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > > @"Tazer.2157" said:

> > > Just destroy the role playing experience altogether. A thief in heavy armor blinking around, a warrior in cloth tanking a boss, an elementalist who puts on heavy armor and needs additional protection with earth skills? Um No thank you.

> >

> > So you are not aware of outfits?

> > I sometimes read these comments and wonder whether or not ppl have logged in during the past 5 years

>

> Outfits are clearly made to monetize the game. I have no problem with that since the game has to make money somehow. But taking away armor classes altogether is a totally different thing.

 

No it's not because outfits already took away armor classes. You can charge as a warrior into battle, wearing a wedding dress and you can be an elementalist wearing full plate armor. It's just that these outfits take away all customization options.

 

And as I wrote earlier, there are enough ways for them to monetize removing armor appearance type restriction, so that they make more money than ever before

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

If, quote, "outfits are extremely unpopular", then we don't see many players using armor that doesn't fit their archetype, no?

[Adenin.5973]

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> If, quote, "outfits are extremely unpopular", then we don't see many players using armor that doesn't fit their archetype, no?

 

Many players do not use them because it defeats the entire purpose of playing a game where you would spend the majority of your time aquiring new cosmetic skins. That's why they're unpopular, not because you could use another armor type for your class lol

 

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Best of luck on your suggestion.

Though, as noted above, unlike Mounts, Expansions, etc., ArenaNet has stated that it would take an awful lot of work to change each of the thousands of existing armor items.

 

I think the best that can be hoped for is a new type of armor, like the dyeable backpacks.

[Fueki.4753]

Many people simply don't wear Outfits because they consider most of them ugly and don't want to spend money on them.

 

I myself only use the monk dress from GW1 and I only use it on one of my ten characters.

I still wonder why it has such ugly censorship inside its skirt, when there are so many skins that are basically underpants.

 

But since Arenanet introduced Outfits with the explicit reasoning to put less work into cosmetics, I doubt we'll ever get mixable armour weights.

[caiomacos.1694]

+1

 

Would also be cool if outfits were actually separate armor pieces so that you could mix & match specific parts of it with other armor.

[The Greyhawk.9107]

> @"Adenin.5973" said:

> I love to play classes that wear medium armor and I hate the medium armor styles. But I love how the heavy armor looks.

> I don't want to buy an outfit that completely takes away every reason to hunt down any sort of cosmetic item that I could mix and match and I do not want to play a class that I do not like, just to get it looking right.

>

> With all the outfits out there and many armor pieces that have the same skin across all three armor types, I don't see why we couldn't see a Mesmer in heavy armor or a warrior that is wearing a dress or whatever (since again, we can already do that). I know that there is a problem with mixing different armor types, so at least give us the option to wear the cosmetic armor appearance that we like, regardless of our class.

>

> This would give me so many new options and new cosmetic rewards that I would want to aquire and if Anet wants to monetize it, they can even put some "change armor type appearance ticket" in the shop.

>

> I do not see how it would negatively impact the game (in PvP you can still give ppl an option to display standard armor type/skin), it offers many players a MASSIVE amount of content that suddenly becomes relevant for them, it shouldn't be THAT much work (especially considering how much playtime many players will get out of this) and you can even make more money with a new shop item.

>

> Edit: Basically what I want is what the wardrobe preview gives you already, where you can have any armor type on any class, yet it makes sure you can't mix and match the different types

 


 

[Opal.9324]

> @"Tazer.2157" said:

> Just destroy the role playing experience altogether. A thief in heavy armor blinking around, a warrior in cloth tanking a boss, an elementalist who puts on heavy armor and needs additional protection with earth skills? Um No thank you.

 

Depending on what class and build you're playing, you can already tank bosses in cloth or be glassy in heavy armor. Why would armor weight of all things be what kills role playing in a game where you can do things like shoot magic, glow like a lightbulb, turn someone into a bird, ride a dragon, summon zombies, turn invisible, glide around with big glowing wings, and have tiny versions of npcs following you everywhere? If something like that was enough to kill role playing, it would already be long dead.

[Tazer.2157]

> @"Opal.9324" said:

> > @"Tazer.2157" said:

> > Just destroy the role playing experience altogether. A thief in heavy armor blinking around, a warrior in cloth tanking a boss, an elementalist who puts on heavy armor and needs additional protection with earth skills? Um No thank you.

>

> Depending on what class and build you're playing, you can already tank bosses in cloth or be glassy in heavy armor. Why would armor weight of all things be what kills role playing in a game where you can do things like shoot magic, glow like a lightbulb, turn someone into a bird, ride a dragon, summon zombies, turn invisible, glide around with big glowing wings, and have tiny versions of npcs following you everywhere? If something like that was enough to kill role playing, it would already be long dead.

 

Sure you can tank bosses, the question here is how do the different classes tank bosses? The warrior has toughness, the elementalist gains toughness using earth skills, the engineer uses portions, the ranger gets protection on dodge. Each class skills are worded in a certain way and the skills reflect the class distinction. This is a fantasy rpg with fantasy elements. In traditional fantasy there are armor classes. A ranger or a thief has to seem or look maneuverable, a warrior needs to look like a bulky machine, a mesmer needs to look like a trickster. We cannot have a mesmer made to look like a gladiator. We cannot have a warrior running around in cloth armor. It would break the immersion many enjoy.

[mindcircus.1506]

> @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> > If, quote, "outfits are extremely unpopular", then we don't see many players using armor that doesn't fit their archetype, no?

>

> Many players do not use them because it defeats the entire purpose of playing a game where you would spend the majority of your time aquiring new cosmetic skins. That's why they're unpopular, not because you could use another armor type for your class lol

Only a quick scan of any highly populated area such as Lion's Arch, Eye of the North, meta events... shows that they are not unpopular at all.

[frareanselm.1925]

Anet is actually losing money with the limitation of armor weight. Outfits sucks. But it would be nice the gem armor sets (parts) like phalanx, striders, incarnate, viper... be available to everybody.

A elementalist that wants the warmage look would like to buy phalanx heavy armor. The customer would be satistied, and anet would recieve 800 gems, win/win.

[Adenin.5973]

> @"mindcircus.1506" said:

> > @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > > @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> > > If, quote, "outfits are extremely unpopular", then we don't see many players using armor that doesn't fit their archetype, no?

> >

> > Many players do not use them because it defeats the entire purpose of playing a game where you would spend the majority of your time aquiring new cosmetic skins. That's why they're unpopular, not because you could use another armor type for your class lol

> Only a quick scan of any highly populated area such as Lion's Arch, Eye of the North, meta events... shows that they are not unpopular at all.

 

Compare the amount of ppl that have bought skins with the amount of outfits ppl are wearing and yes indeed you will see that most players that have bought skins before do not wear any outfit and why would they, when the outfit makes any other skin, other than weapons and backpiece, worthless.

[Dante.1763]

> @"Taylan.2187" said:

 

>

> Of course there might be a bunch of issues that I'm not aware of as I don't know how their code and data types are structured, but it really can't be that difficult unless their software architecture is a complete mess.

 

Ive posted heavily on these threads as i seem to be the only person who was willing to go dig through the old forums to find the posts.

 

Due to design decisions -years- before the game was even released anet made it so that each skeleton on each different race had different rigging points for different armor weights. When you try and preview a heavy armor piece on a light armor character it clears the skins due to have to load an entirely different skeleton. Players back in the early days of the game ripped the models out of the game including skeletons and put different armor weights on different weighted skeletons, the result was massively twisted and destroyed character models(think getting hit with a giant hammer in skyrim, no community patch. Stretch out etc.)

 

Outfits are a fourth armor weight as well, that armor weight used to be titled Town Clothes, so in reality the four weights are: Light, Medium, Heavy, Outfit.

 

and yes, this games code is some of the worst spaghetti code imaginable apparently. Theres a reason they leave certain bugs in game as fixing them causes many many other things to break.

 

Could they make mix n match armor weights a thing? i believe so if they thought theyd make more money doing it than with outfits.

[mindcircus.1506]

> @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > @"mindcircus.1506" said:

> > > @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > > > @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> > > > If, quote, "outfits are extremely unpopular", then we don't see many players using armor that doesn't fit their archetype, no?

> > >

> > > Many players do not use them because it defeats the entire purpose of playing a game where you would spend the majority of your time aquiring new cosmetic skins. That's why they're unpopular, not because you could use another armor type for your class lol

> > Only a quick scan of any highly populated area such as Lion's Arch, Eye of the North, meta events... shows that they are not unpopular at all.

>

> Compare the amount of ppl that have bought skins with the amount of outfits ppl are wearing and yes indeed you will see that most players that have bought skins before do not wear any outfit and why would they, when the outfit makes any other skin, other than weapons and backpiece, worthless.

Maybe I am being dense on a Sunday morning, but this sentence comes across as gibberish and I cannot make sense of it.

[Vrath.1754]

> @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > @"Taylan.2187" said:

> > > @"Donari.5237" said:

> > > You may wish to search the years of threads on this issue. Some of them contain quotes of dev responses explaining the incredibly vast amount of work this would entail along with the good chance of breaking the game software into little bits, even if it's just an all-or-nothing weight choice.

> >

> > I wonder what their reason is, because as a programmer I can't imagine it being all that difficult.

> >

> > I'm guessing that their issue is that they've coupled item skin too tightly with item type. E.g. when I transmute my Eternity into a Darksteel Greatsword, it doesn't become an Eternity with the skin of a Darksteel Greatsword, it actually becomes a Darksteel Greatsword. (The rarity and stats are probably decoupled from this "item skin/type" attribute, so you legit get a legendary Darksteel Greatsword, just like you can have a masterwork Eternity via transmutation.)

> >

> > And this combined skin/type attribute probably determines whether the armor is light/medium/heavy, so if they allowed to transmute them we would be literally changing the item type. In other words, after you've transmuted your heavy armor to light you suddenly can't use it anymore because it's now actual light armor.

> >

> > The solution? Give the item data type a new attribute called "skin override" which in the case of armor can be set to any armor for the same body part, and which is used for nothing else than rendering the appearance. If the attribute value is empty, fall back to the old attribute for rendering. Going forward, don't ever change the base item type anymore but only the "skin override" attribute when an item is transmuted, so that the logic of the "can be used" check isn't affected. And ta da, you have a piece of heavy armor with an overridden appearance of light armor.

> >

> > Of course there might be a bunch of issues that I'm not aware of as I don't know how their code and data types are structured, but it really can't be that difficult unless their software architecture is a complete mess.

>

> I don't get it either and I do have some knowledge of programming.

>

> Only way I can imagine that this is "impossible" (or rather too much work), is a harsh case of spaghetti code, where somehow huge parts of code for the classes, skills, effects, traits etc are touched by their hardcoded armor weight. But I do not see why anyone would program a game in that way

>

> And yes, like you said, there would still be ways around such issues

 

They never said its impossible, its essentially not worth the effort most likely. Like everything in programming is the time investment worth the return, just like a lot of bugs. If they can be convinced its financially worth the man hours then they'd be more likely to do it. How much revenue would it generate really? More then working on an xpac or whatever else their working on? In their view it isnt.

 

People make a lot of assumptions about the code and Dev skill sets with little actually knowledge of the code, its very easy to armchair Dev. I do it to others at work all the time :)

[Kulvar.1239]

> @"Vrath.1754" said:

> > @"Adenin.5973" said:

> > > @"Taylan.2187" said:

> > > > @"Donari.5237" said:

> > > > You may wish to search the years of threads on this issue. Some of them contain quotes of dev responses explaining the incredibly vast amount of work this would entail along with the good chance of breaking the game software into little bits, even if it's just an all-or-nothing weight choice.

> > >

> > > I wonder what their reason is, because as a programmer I can't imagine it being all that difficult.

> > >

> > > I'm guessing that their issue is that they've coupled item skin too tightly with item type. E.g. when I transmute my Eternity into a Darksteel Greatsword, it doesn't become an Eternity with the skin of a Darksteel Greatsword, it actually becomes a Darksteel Greatsword. (The rarity and stats are probably decoupled from this "item skin/type" attribute, so you legit get a legendary Darksteel Greatsword, just like you can have a masterwork Eternity via transmutation.)

> > >

> > > And this combined skin/type attribute probably determines whether the armor is light/medium/heavy, so if they allowed to transmute them we would be literally changing the item type. In other words, after you've transmuted your heavy armor to light you suddenly can't use it anymore because it's now actual light armor.

> > >

> > > The solution? Give the item data type a new attribute called "skin override" which in the case of armor can be set to any armor for the same body part, and which is used for nothing else than rendering the appearance. If the attribute value is empty, fall back to the old attribute for rendering. Going forward, don't ever change the base item type anymore but only the "skin override" attribute when an item is transmuted, so that the logic of the "can be used" check isn't affected. And ta da, you have a piece of heavy armor with an overridden appearance of light armor.

> > >

> > > Of course there might be a bunch of issues that I'm not aware of as I don't know how their code and data types are structured, but it really can't be that difficult unless their software architecture is a complete mess.

> >

> > I don't get it either and I do have some knowledge of programming.

> >

> > Only way I can imagine that this is "impossible" (or rather too much work), is a harsh case of spaghetti code, where somehow huge parts of code for the classes, skills, effects, traits etc are touched by their hardcoded armor weight. But I do not see why anyone would program a game in that way

> >

> > And yes, like you said, there would still be ways around such issues

>

> They never said its impossible, its essentially not worth the effort most likely. Like everything in programming is the time investment worth the return, just like a lot of bugs. If they can be convinced its financially worth the man hours then they'd be more likely to do it. How much revenue would it generate really? More then working on an xpac or whatever else their working on? In their view it isnt.

>

> People make a lot of assumptions about the code and Dev skill sets with little actually knowledge of the code, its very easy to armchair Dev. I do it to others at work all the time :)

 

I know people who would pay the price of an outfit to be able to make a custom outfit out of a selected weight type.

[GummyBearSummoner.7941]

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> Best of luck on your suggestion.

> Though, as noted above, unlike Mounts, Expansions, etc., ArenaNet has stated that it would take an awful lot of work to change each of the thousands of existing armor items.

>

> I think the best that can be hoped for is a new type of armor, like the dyeable backpacks.

 

So that means the can’t make it happen? Lol that’s not a good excuse. Just like they have different teams for different projects they can make it happen. I’m not throwing money into the gem store for them not to make nice things for the rest of us.

 

Ps: not attacking you, just stating that I would really appreciate it if Anet would stop making excuses . Just like they stated a while back they are weren’t going into Cantha , here we are in 2020.