[QoL Suggestion] Dyeable Back Items

First, don't get me wrong, not all back items need to be dyeable.

I'm referring specifically the items which have dyeable glider counterparts.

It's nice to be able to dye certain gliders, but when you can't dye the back item to match, it makes doing so difficult to look at sometimes.

(Edit: fixed typo)

We’ve tried....

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/29574/suggestion-dyeable-backpacks

This question has been asked many times, and Anet also gave an answer. I can't find that answer through a quick Forum search (it might've been on the old Forum), but what it comes down to is that gliders are specifically designed to have dye channels, while back items do not. Back items have been in the game for a long time and back then it wasn't part of their goals or intentions, so they weren't created that way. To add dye channels to back items now would require a rework of back items in general and the time and resources needed to achieve that aren't worth sacrificing developer time for. Time that is otherwise (and in my opinion, better) spent on new content.

Now that's not to say I wouldn't like to see them do it the same way they did it with sitting in chairs. The patch notes made it clear that developments throughout the existence of the game the past 5.5 years brought the technical possibility of sitting in chairs closer, so they decided to spend that last bit of development time on it and implemented that feature. I am hoping something similar will be possible for dyeable back items, but I wouldn't count on it, nor would I expect it anytime soon.

TL/DR: It won't happen because of technical limitations and costs too much time and resources to implement.

Here’s the quote on dyeing backpieces.

Substance EBack items also take damage like armor and thus are not the same thing as accessories or weapons. They never got dye channels likely for the same reason that we only had the guild backpack at launch, it was never finished.Backpacks will remain un-dyable so Anet can sell black and white wing sets. Plain and simple.

Tidgepot.3285If you need citation, then look no further. I'm the dev who concepted this glider! Granted, I'm an artist so I couldn't give you the full technical rundown like Josh Petrie, but I do handle our engine daily.

Whether or not the equipment takes damage or not has no bearing on how the engine separates items. The engine sees armor as what is called a composite, it sees things attached to your characters like weapons and backpieces as items, and it sees gliders as a sort of middleground item/effect. Our file structure separates gliders as items, but because of how they pop into view, layer, and more easily allow for dyes it makes sense to basically treat them as effects. Now I'm not positive on this, but I'm going to hazard a guess that if we decided to make gliders as items, we'd have to retroactively alter the system in a way that would allow for weapons/backpieces to be dyed.

On its face doing this sounds like a great idea, since this is what fans want. As a fellow player I'd like this as well, but unfortunately our systems were not designed with this in mind. Not only would we have to go back and code each item so it can have dye channels/sufficient UI and prepare for the veritable bugfest that would ensue from altering a system that has years of work built on top of it, but we'd also have to retexture these items. Why? Our dye system is balanced around a red base color which has an impact on how every other color will appear when a channel shifts to it. Anyone who has played with dodging/burning in photoshop will know that red has some strange properties when it comes to shifts in values. Many dyes would have blown out/dull/oddly saturated textures as a result.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. There's SO much more to the process that I don't have a firm grasp on.

The devs here are gamers and we love what we do. We want fans to get excited about what we make because we're fans, too. However, we have players clamoring for every fix/feature under the sun so we have to do a ton of prioritizing. Game development is never plain and simple.

Edit: Thanks Aikawa! I designed it but Chelsea M. modeled it. She's a rockstar!

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Ashe Lewis.9815

I rarely post on the forums so I just had my account upgraded to a developer one. So Tidgepot is indeed a dev because I'm Tidgepot! My posts earlier in this thread still stand. I'm sorry about the confusion :P

Like I said before, I’m just an artist so I’ll elaborate on what I understand as best as I can, but I’m no engineer.

This sounds like a it could be good idea, but it doesn’t sidestep the issue of categorization and what certain types of assets can do. The older assets would still be affected. We’d still encounter a ton of programing challenges and bugs from altering a core mechanic of the game and the years of code built on top of it. Every player and many npcs use items, so the wrong bug slipping through can have a major impact on everyone in the game. Not to mention finding that bug could be like searching for a needle in a haystack because of how fundamental this part of our system is. We’d still probably end up having to re-author and retexture all old items (which would take a ton of resources) and even if we did do that, more players may end up upset by the minor texture changes to their current gear than those who can’t dye backpacks.

Maybe(?) a workaround could be a new asset type, but our engine is old and finicky— it would certainly take a lot resources to teach it to parse through something so fundamental.

The fact that they didn't have the foresight to give backpacks dye channels is telling. Like, unless they were among the earliest assets created, why wouldn't you think people would want to color those? I'm often baffled by decisions like this.

Well, a lot of things have changed over the years. What was once thought would never be desired, is now much desired. What was once thought to always work one way, works completely differently now. I guess the Devs are human, and can't always predict what the future should/would/will/can bring.

You never know, maybe those things that seem difficult to implement now, may some day 'magically' appear. :astonished:

Think about all the wings, you can buy any one then dye whatever color you want to make any wings making it so anet can't sell that color you want to you down the road.

Sure you can say well not everything should be dyeable, then that just raises complaints from others saying it's dumb you can dye this but not this.

Same kinda case with weapons as well, it overall is annoying but just something anet I don't think has any plans of changing.

@Timbersword.9014 said:The fact that they didn't have the foresight to give backpacks dye channels is telling. Like, unless they were among the earliest assets created, why wouldn't you think people would want to color those? I'm often baffled by decisions like this.

They may have been among the earliest assets created but they were also very rare back at launch. I remember that engineers could get a backpack with character creation and wear other backpacks, but iirc they were effects and changed according to what kit you were using. Dungeons dropped Spineguards, but they are invisible. The first non engineer visible backpack I can recall seeing was Mad Memoirs. Backpacks then weren’t a fashion item like they are now. The engineer having different backpacks that appeared and disappeared slowed down the use of cosmetic backpacks. They really didn’t take off until ANet removed that feature from engineers.

Myself, I will admit it I'm a fashion junkie in GW2 & part of that is being able to dye any item (including back items) the colors that we want.... Hopefully one day ANET will devote some of its resources towards this goal...

If it requires resources and can't change old back items, make new back items dyable and only purchasable through gem store. So new glider combos with dyable back items.

@Dreadshow.9320 said:If it requires resources and can't change old back items, make new back items dyable and only purchasable through gem store. So new glider combos with dyable back items.

That would still require a full rework of how the game handles back items, and all back items - whether supposed to be made dyeable or not - would need to be remade.