[Suggestions] armor skin ignore weight

[Zeivu.3615]

If they cannot make mixing and matching between armor classes, I wouldn't be opposed if they could allow us switch between layering mechanics if it means access to the skins of another class. People in PVP and WvW can tell what you are by the world map.

[Ohoni.6057]

Technically my answer is "yes," but with a caveat. I think it's important to note how non-trivial this is, the question makes it seem simple "just ignore wight!" The problem is that the armors as they are currently built *cannot* be mixed and matched. They have differently placed waists, different physics riggings, they are not interchangeable. Yes, bits like head, shoulders, gloves, and boots can sometimes be re-rigged to work for all three types, and outfits each have a single type that can ignore the typing that the character's class has, but that doesn't mean that you could just throw a Medium jacket and Light pants together and they just aren't "allowing" it.

 

**That said,**

 

I do think it's important that they *fix this.* It will take a lot of work, but it's work worth doing. It basically would involve them picking one of the existing armor weights, my guess would be Light, and then adapt all the Heavy and Medium armors to fit on that framework. This would entail manually shifting the waistlines of all the chest and leg pieces, re-rigging all the buttcapes and trenchcoats to work with a single physics skeleton, and adjusting pieces so that they don't clip with each other.

 

The trickiest part is reconciling the Medium armors with the other two. The problem is that Medium armors have "coat" rigging, that is that the Chest piece has a train that can reach the ankles. The heavy and light armors, on the other hand, have "butt capes," that is that the LEGS have a skirt or train component. Overlapping the two is a recipe for clipping nightmares, so to fix this, they would have to work out solutions for every Light/Heavy Legging that has a butt cape, so that it would get out of the way of the trenchcoats, similar to how boots and gloves get out of the way of long sleaves/pants.

 

The simplest way to do this would be to remove/replace the buttcapes entirely when a long medium chest is on, but this could look weird on some outfits. Another would be to adjust all the trenchcoats so that they don't go past the waist when wearing leggings with buttcapes. Either way it's a hassle.

 

Either way, it's *still* important that they take the time and effort to make it happen.

[Dondarrion.2748]

> @shejesa.3712 said:

> A noble goal but it is not worth it. They would have put tons of resources into getting rid of all the clipping that medium/light/have models are bound to have. Outfits have to be in order only within their own texture and with weapons/backpack that are the same for all the weights.

 

Everytime someone quotes clipping as an objection to loosen armor weight restriction, I just smirk... there's already so much clipping within an armor weight and Anet should trust players to work out which pieces would go well together and really expand on their Fashion Wars with this!

[revodeel.2651]

It seems most of the counterarguments are that mixing different skins from different weight classes will cause hella clipping. What about allowing us to use any skins as long as it is in the same weight?

 

I have never found medium armor that I care for so being able to use all heavy skins or all light skins would help. For example, allow Rangers to wear heavy skins, allow Guardians to wear light skins, etc. Just a thought.

[The Angle of Deth.2985]

At least let us use any weight of cultural armor. That shouldn't be a problem.

Then my necro can wear pants if I could access the medium weight cultural leggings instead of that kitten skirt.

[Sojourner.4621]

> @"DreamyLove.8947" said:

> > @Machiavell.7396 said:

> > As a player who played this game since release, let me clarify it for you. Wishes and polls aside, what you suggest is not possible in game's engine. Back in the day, you could actually preview multiple weights of armor at the same time, but all you got from it was a bunch of glitched out textures. Game's engine works with certain skeletons and these skeletons have different mesh for armors and pants. This is why medium armors in majority are trenchcoats, and because of different hook spots and whatever, it's impossible to effectively mix and match armor pieces that in some cases go on top of each other's hook point and literally flip your game inside out. Gloves, Boots, Helmets and Shoulders have same hook spots so that can be added across multiple weights, and won't break anything, BUT they work ONLY because they are prepared for that ahead of time, as I remember that previewing heavy pants with light/medium shoes back then also created unsettling graphical anomalies.

> >

> > Technical part aside, outfits broke enough immersion already, I would prefer actually to have armor weights as they are now, to preserve at least some of classes originality.

> >

>

> i think skeletons in gw2 is by race/gender

>

> when we use same wepaen on each weight

> we can see they are same action

 

Skeleton is the incorrect term, what we're looking at here is an anchor problem, and as they said sometimes the preview resulted in "clipping", but not like you think of clipping now... mixing a heavy pants with a medium top and similar could result in textures being turned literally inside out, bodies being condensed, meshes "escaping" from the player model and producing spiky protrusions, etc.

[Sojourner.4621]

> @"revodeel.2651" said:

> It seems most of the counterarguments are that mixing different skins from different weight classes will cause hella clipping. What about allowing us to use any skins as long as it is in the same weight?

>

> I have never found medium armor that I care for so being able to use all heavy skins or all light skins would help. For example, allow Rangers to wear heavy skins, allow Guardians to wear light skins, etc. Just a thought.

 

Clipping with armor weight mixing isn't like the clipping you are used to. Because the game engine tries to condense the different weight's anchor points together in a way they were not designed to fit, it can result in "clipping" that turns your character's torso inside out.

[Sojourner.4621]

> @"DreamyLove.8947" said:

> > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > > @DreamyLove.8947 said:

> > > > @shejesa.3712 said:

> > > > A noble goal but it is not worth it. They would have put tons of resources into getting rid of all the clipping that medium/light/have models are bound to have. Outfits have to be in order only within their own texture and with weapons/backpack that are the same for all the weights.

> > >

> > > we already have "clipping" problem at same weight

> > >

> > > so i don't think this is why we can't have ignore weight

> > >

> > > ppl who wanna mix weight, he will choose the match one

> >

> > We don't have the kind of clipping problems that come with mixing weights. If you think clipping is bad now, you can't imagine how bad it is without the amount of testing/refinement they do.

> >

> > I don't think ANet will ever do away with weights of armor. "Outfits" bypass that by creating a fourth weight (or fifth, if you include town clothes, which were also a unique weight that couldn't be mixed with the others).

> >

> > What they could do is eliminate the requirement that "light armor" skins can only be worn by scholar classes. Since you can appear to be in metal armor using outfits, there's no longer a gamplay reason for the restriction. (That wouldn't be cheap to accomplish; it would just be a lot cheaper than allowing mixed weights.)

>

> i am not thikng clipping is bad

> but also i don't thinkg that is a why we can't do ignore weight

>

> also when u preview skin

> u can see all weight they near the same line base on body

>

> and i think only reason is they don't want, they didn't do, not they can't do by current engine

>

> 

>

 

You're misunderstanding the fundamental problem. It is in fact a game engine limitation. The armor pieces themselves actually anchor to different places on the skeleton... and when you mix them it tries to put those anchor points together, condensing the skeleton in weird ways. the term "clipping" is an inadequate description for what happens here... You used to be able to preview mix and match, which worked fine when using med pants with med tops, etc. The moment you mixed a med top with, say, a heavy armor though things would happen like your character's torso shortening, or the character's waist turning inside out... for an example of what can happen when something causes the mesh to condense in a way it was not supposed to (not an armor issue but very similar to how some of these mixes behaved in preview)....

 

[revodeel.2651]

> @"Sojourner.4621" said:

> > @"revodeel.2651" said:

> > It seems most of the counterarguments are that mixing different skins from different weight classes will cause hella clipping. What about allowing us to use any skins as long as it is in the same weight?

> >

> > I have never found medium armor that I care for so being able to use all heavy skins or all light skins would help. For example, allow Rangers to wear heavy skins, allow Guardians to wear light skins, etc. Just a thought.

>

> Clipping with armor weight mixing isn't like the clipping you are used to. Because the game engine tries to condense the different weight's anchor points together in a way they were not designed to fit, it can result in "clipping" that turns your character's torso inside out.

 

Now that is something I would pay to see!

[videoboy.4162]

I definitely think they should do this. They'd have to rebuild the armor system from scratch and update older models, but that's something they need to do anyway. In the long run, it would make players super happy and make it easier for them to design, implement, and fix armor.

[Dioskur.1743]

They have this option already in eso and now I love my magic sorcerer in heavy armor :D. Think what opportunities it would give in GW2

[gateless gate.8406]

Yes, and let's allow weapon reskins regardless of weapon type! And let's allow people to reskin spell effects from one class to the next! Heck, why not let people reskin their class icon? Let's remove as much class identity as possible!

[Yamazuki.6073]

> @"gateless gate.8406" said:

> Yes, and let's allow weapon reskins regardless of weapon type! And let's allow people to reskin spell effects from one class to the next! Heck, why not let people reskin their class icon? Let's remove as much class identity as possible!

 

Class identity in regards to armor appearance makes no sense due to outfits of any armor type being usable by all 3 anyways.

[gateless gate.8406]

> @"Yamazuki.6073" said:

> > @"gateless gate.8406" said:

> > Yes, and let's allow weapon reskins regardless of weapon type! And let's allow people to reskin spell effects from one class to the next! Heck, why not let people reskin their class icon? Let's remove as much class identity as possible!

>

> Class identity in regards to armor appearance makes no sense due to outfits of any armor type being usable by all 3 anyways.

 

Yes, and outfits are similarly immersion-breaking and absurd.