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Update the Celestial Infusion textures.


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  • 1 month later...

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@"Tiviana.2650" said:Why though, they make more if you upgrade to the outfit

Because they will lose players if they keep doing stupid stuff like this

Probably not. You can wear whatever armor you want with the infusion.

Yeah, I wouldn't "upgrade" to the outfit because the outfit doesn't look anything like the fashion I have put together on my FB. It's not a replacement for it.

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I'm writing this post because I want to give some simple honest feedback to Arenanet as a company. This is not meant as an attack. I just want Arenanet to be the best they can be. I think there's a lot of reasons (some good, some bad) for the rise in "doom and gloom" posts and drama. This stuff doesn't happen without a reason.

toqTR45.jpg

This screenshot was floating around yesterday and I believe it pretty much encapsulates a big problem at Arenanet that should not be ignored by the upper management. I realize the company needs to make money, and they have every right to sell outfits and such. That is not what I want to point out. What I want to point out is Arenanet's priorities which are on full display in this screenshot.


The ContextThe screenshot shows the celestial infusion on the Charr's head, and the new Starborn outfit on his body. The infusion is an item that was added in 2017. The outfit was added yesterday, 2019. Players have been asking Arenanet to fix the low resolution of the infusion since the day it was added 2 years ago. Arenanet never changed it. They have given no explanation as to why.


The TaskI am familiar with how materials and textures are set up in game engines such as Unreal Engine 4 and Unity. I can tell you that in those engines, swapping a texture is about as simple as moving a jpeg file from your desktop into your Pictures folder. I have no idea how Arenanet's engine works, but I believe it is unrealistic to expect their system to be so egregiously primitive as to make this task impossible. Surely Arenanet pushes their technology to meet and possibly exceed industry standards. I don't think it's fair to meme the engine as some sort of Flintstones joke. They have engine programmers who work very hard every day of the week. Swapping a texture should be a reasonable task.


The ProblemSince we don't know how Arenanet's engine works, and they wont tell us, we only have industry standards on which to base our assumptions. Also, we only have Arenanet's actions (or lack thereof) to glean insight. From the outside, it looks like Arenanet either can't, wont, or don't care enough to make this fix. It seems like they would rather spend time and resources selling us a better version in the gem store. Not just in the gem store, but in a lootbox. This, in a time when lootboxes are a highly contentious topic in the games industry.


Arenanet's ImageI've thought about it a bit and here are some options I can think of to explain why we find ourselves in this situation.Either:

  1. Arenanet can't fix the infusion due to system limitations.
  2. Arenanet won't fix the infusion for some reason.
  3. Arenanet are simply unaware that players have been asking for this fix for 2 years.

I'm not sure which of these is the worst. If option 1, why not let us know? Arenanet could put the issue (mostly) to rest. The only problem then is asking yourself why Arenanet's game engine cannot handle a function which any other standard game engine can handle very easily. It would seem Arenanet should correct this issue if it is the case.

If option 2, again they could put the issue to rest with a statement. Maybe this is their artistic vision? I don't know. But we can't read Arenanet's mind. There needs to be communication.

If option 3, this is horrible. It speaks to a massive disconnect between the company and it's customers.


Final ThoughtsI think it all boils down to communication. Arenanet needs to be more in touch with us. Either they need to explain why the infusion isn't fixed, or they need to be aware enough to know that players want it fixed. Releasing an outfit with high res quality and dye channels in a lootbox while ignoring your fans is not good. And let's not forget, Arenanet released 6 mount skins with the same shader effect in the last 2 years. All of them gem store items. This makes it look like Arenanet only cares about putting quality art assets in the cash shop. It makes it look like Arenanet care that deeply about money, but they can't be bothered to swap a file reference with a few clicks for the infusion.

I'll reiterate, I'm not saying Arenanet is being intentionally malicious or anything. I'm just trying to illustrate what this looks like from the viewpoint of the players. Unfortunately a lot of times perception has more impact than reality. Company image is important for their reputation and having good will with the community. I hope this feedback helps Arenanet to identify ways they can hopefully improve their relationship with the fans.

Edit:

By all means, Arenanet has every right to pursue profit by selling items in the gem store. I've bought more than my fair share of stuff over the years. My suggestion is that Arenanet should shift their priorities just a little bit to addressing issues like this. It would go a long way to improving community moral and winning back some good will with the disenfranchised fans.

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@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@Tiviana.2650 said:Why though, they make more if you upgrade to the outfit

Because they will lose players if they keep doing stupid stuff like this

Probably not. You can wear whatever armor you want with the infusion.

Is that an excuse for celestial infusions/zodiac armor being garbage compared to the outfit's effect? Just update textures on infus/zodiac and problem solved, everyone is happy.

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i should think it wouldnt be that much of a hassle to fix. It would require reskinning the infusion to the starborn skin type, not that big of a deal really. Why they wont idk maybe they never noticed. It would be sad if they didnt care, and were just making the infusions obsolete. I think you have to care as much about whats in the game as you do for your shop items, otherwise it gives a bad idea of what you really think of your game. And that the shop is more important. Honestly though reskin it people did a lot for those infusions and quality of ingame stuff that you worked for shouldnt be terribly lower than the stuff you buy in a store. If anything the effort of playing the game to acquire rewards should produce better results than just dropping gems without any interaction of playing the game.

This is a backwards philosophy to me. In most games i have played the best rewards came from doing the best content in the game, not buying it outside of the game. Someone said it a while back that, games have to be competitive otherwise people lose interest, there is no drive to do anything, to compel yourself to get better reach further. Along with that you can see that reward does not equal effort, and that is a driving force in all aspects of life. So it needs to be in games also. GW2 has a good system in a lot of ways, but where it fails is its not very competitive and rewards dont fit the effort for many things, and infusions are one of those. The quality of ingame rewards for things like this needs to be better.

That picture speaks a thousand words.

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@"Zuldari.3940" said:

That picture speaks a thousand words.

Bad enough, but then there is this (not my pic - https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/cjwc1o/starborn_outfit_is_a_big_sucker_punch_for/evh0hdf/):5RZZ6M1.jpg

Disabling the helmet displays your normal head, which looks outright silly compared to the rest of your celestial body.

As I said on Reddit, who looked at this and said "yep, that's ready for release"

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@Turkeyspit.3965 said:

@"Zuldari.3940" said:

That picture speaks a thousand words.

Bad enough, but then there is this (not my pic -
):
5RZZ6M1.jpg

Disabling the helmet displays your normal head, which looks outright silly compared to the rest of your celestial body.

As I said on Reddit, who looked at this and said "yep, that's ready for release"

This puts me in a weird spot...If Celestial Infusion used the new textures, I would buy it.If disabling the helm still had the "Starborn" affect, I would by that.

Result:I am not buying anything.

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I’m big into getting as many infusions as I can, but the celestial one just doesn’t look good to me (not texture I just mean I don’t especially want to look like a humanoid map of space). But i still wish anet would update it just to end this complaining

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  • 5 months later...

As someone who recently procured a celestial blue infusion for myself, I must say I do agree with this. Sometimes my character just looks like a portal into the blue screen of death realm. One thing that bugs me but is bearable anyway is the eyes lacking any texture changes, resulting in some weird contrast. Regardless, that can always be fixed with a warbeast cowl, and I do like it that way. Anyway, something I seem to disagree with is comparing starborn outfit textures to celestial infusion overlay: starborn outfit has other particle effects laid over the underlying texture, and the underlying texture itself moves, but I think that more says something about the difference in quality between the two and the amount of skill that exists and could be put toward upgrading the latter.

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  • 1 month later...

I agree with everyone else. I use the celestial infusion with my Starlight Outfit, because the helm is so awful on Asura. Being a necro teletubby just isn't for me.

Alternative: Just add the upgraded infusion in the Gemstore. Keep the current one, and let us buy that. Hopefully we can get a dye-able infusion that way. drool

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@Josiah.2967 said:I agree with everyone else. I use the celestial infusion with my Starlight Outfit, because the helm is so awful on Asura. Being a necro teletubby just isn't for me.

Alternative: Just add the upgraded infusion in the Gemstore. Keep the current one, and let us buy that. Hopefully we can get a dye-able infusion that way. drool

That alternative is a horrible idea. Infusions are one of the biggest in-game rewards. To add a gem-store infusion that is a direct upgrade to a previously existing reward would be a very bad move. It would anger a lot of people and set a bad precedent for future things.

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  • 1 year later...

Bumping this!

Recently I tried both infusions and it is crazy that they have such a low resolution, especially compared to astral mounts and the new outfit! It needs to upgraded!

Imagine people getting the infusion only to realize that it looks that bad, on border of actually being non wearable.

Edited by eMKay.4028
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