Cosmetic Frustrations

[Jokubas.4265]

I've gotten back into the game recently and realized I had left a new character from the beginning of the year that I never settled on. With a fresh perspective, I realized they didn't engage me after all, so I deleted them and finally committed to my alternative idea instead. This also made me realize part of the reason why I hadn't much played half my other alts despite investing a lot of time into getting them "just right." I've realized there's a difference between something I think is neat or artistic, and something that actually engages me while playing. I don't know if anyone gets what I mean, but my exact reasons for feeling it aren't the important part.

The important part is that I sat down to try to redesign my old alts into something I felt more like playing and... just ran into so many dead ends I had never considered before.

1) The first thing I realized is how few skins I have for any given slot. Despite playing the game on and off since launch, I really don't have that many options because of a particular fluke of the reward system in this game. I don't want to sound negative here because I overall love the horizontal progression and all that, but there's an issue where you honestly don't get a lot for just playing the game. Most rewards require you to specifically hunt just that thing, and they can get pretty in-depth. I've basically never been excited enough for any reward to bother going out of my way to put that effort it, but since that's the primary way to earn options, I have limited options even after a decade.

2) What I realized next is how little point 1 mattered. The armor skin galleries on the wiki made me realize that the Armor Types stick so strongly to a certain overall silhouette that there is barely any actual variety. I remember people complaining about the trenchcoat thing for medium armor years ago, but I hadn't realized how true it mostly still is. I found this made it largely pointless to even seek out the earnable skins I've missed, because they didn't really change the feel of my character anyway. I've criticized the Transmutation Charge system in the past and how it encourages the use of Outfits over skins, but now I realize there may have been another reason I've been prioritizing Outfits without even realizing it. There is an amazing amount of variety in the Outfits and there are a lot of them at this point, and all of that variety is equally available to every Profession. The fact that you can't mix and match pieces of Outfits and have no control outside of Hide Helm on them is strongly outweighed by the sheer variety they give you that you can't get anywhere else.

3) The final obstacle I encountered were with my weapons. I actually have a decent variety of skins for some weapon types. The problem is I effectively have no control over what weapons I use. Again, this is a case where I don't want to sound like I'm just being negative because I think the weapon skill system in this game is pretty cool and gives weapons a distinct character and realistic variety of combat roles that you don't see too often in games. The issue is that it comes at the cost of customization. It doesn't matter how cool that Hammer skin I just got is if Hammer on my Profession just isn't fun to me, or otherwise clashes with my build/playstyle (assuming it's even an option). Even with two weapon sets on each character, I don't actually have a reason to use at least half the weapon types in this game, and that's worse when you consider the times when it's the same weapons that just happen to be best for me on different Professions. I have some really cool weapon skins I really want to use, but every time I decide to finally stop worrying about Transmutation Charges or whatever and go to try it out, I realize it's the weapon skills themselves that mean I'm never going to see that skin on that character.

 

In the end, I mostly ended up where I started and have decided to continue leaving those alts on the bench. A big reason I came to that conclusion had to do with gameplay itself and not cosmetics (I realized there's a way I'm most comfortable playing this game that not every Profession has a good option for), but the gameplay one was just a matter of playstyle, while I think the cosmetic question is something I think can be addressed.

So for the sake of being thorough, I'll try to make a quick list of ways I think the obstacles I ran into above can be removed.

1) This one is complicated and can be solved in a variety of ways. The first step I'd like to see is just a design philosophy one: Just to acknowledge that the current design can easily lead to this collection dead end where you can actively play the game for years but not actually have anything to show for it. The other suggestion I'd give is to introduce a couple of extra armor sets every expansion or season that can be earned more casually without having to specifically seek them out. Perhaps a vendor that uses something like Pieces of Unidentified Gear as a currency. I know Dungeons have been dead since basically forever, but the relatively recent update to put have all dungeon skins use a single currency is the sort of thing I'd like to see more of. Everyone can work together on the same content and choose their rewards individually, instead of having to do specific collections for each thing.

2) Straight up remove armor type restrictions for Transmutation. Outfits made this mostly meaningless forever ago anyway, and many special armor sets given out recently are identical across armor type and just grant all three variants at the same time as well (I don't know how PvP handles this, but exceptions can easily be made where needed). Sure, this might encourage a little bit of laziness going forward where we are only given one armor set for everyone in places where we would have traditionally gotten three, but in most cases that single armor set will probably still give more variety to 2 out of the 3 armor sets than they would have gotten if all three got their own that conformed to the same limited silhouette (for instance, a single armor set without a trenchcoat will be more unique to medium armor users than medium armor getting their own set that's just another trenchcoat).

3) This one's the toughest. Because of how unique weapons are and how tied they are to their animations, there's not a lot that can be done here. It may also be super hard-coded. However, I would still be super curious if it could at least be experimented with that weapons be able to be transmuted into other weapon types, even if it's still restricted in some way (like bows and guns together, Mesmer Greatsword have special limitations, etc.). It's just super frustrating to realize that a good build or super fun abilities are tied to a weapon type that just doesn't match the gel with the rest of your customization.

 

Is there anywhere else you have run into surprising obstacles when trying to customize your character. This game has some great customization, but I'd love if we could make it even better.

[casualkenny.9817]

Some people relayed anet's explanation for part of the problem few years before. Iirc it went something like (heavily paraphrased):

 

1) at the start, they wanted each armour weight class to have a distinguishable silhouette for pvp-reasons. Hence each armour class had its own thematic design, and more importantly, differently coded anchor points of the armour skin to the body (though the problem is more for the chest and pants. Gloves shoes shoulders hats don't have this issue much). 

 

2) hence trying to mix a heavy shirt and light pants, for eg, could lead to serious graphical bugs, because the attachment points didn't tally. Iirc it was game/server crash level of bug when it was tested.

 

3) as the years passed, they realised that that was a really bad idea, because now to release a thematic skin, you need to code versions for 5 races x 3 weight classes x 2 types, which made the cost effectiveness of development less profitable.

 

4) so they made a 4th weight class, outfits, that all classes can use, without separable parts. Less coding effort (not just 1/3), more sales since everyone can use them, more happiness.

 

 

So they're stuck with this legacy restriction and can't make more skin parts like players want. And I can see why it can't be fixed.

 

I do think they should have created a 5th universal armour weight years ago to come into full effect X years later, with limited backwards compatibility, with considerations for a transition period, and I think they should still consider it going forward, but that's just me.

 

 

With regards to weapons, perhaps you can consider a possible workaround for your particular situation using your existing characters, that is to create a complete design that you like, including skins, appearance, profession+weapon, then birth a new character into that role. But you probably tried that already, or it doesn't go well with your playing preferences 

Edited September 16, 2022 by casualkenny.9817

[Randulf.7614]

I strongly disagree. This game has more variety of skins and so many easy to access that it’s almost overwhelming. Combined with mix and match and a decent dye system, i can’t think of another mmo anywhere close to this.

There are so many cool options, I used to make toons just to have a specific look or weapon combo

The only barriers I ever found were the transmutation charges early on and the dreadful build/wardrobe switch system. Actually obtaining stuff was the best bit

[kharmin.7683]

(sigh)  Seems like yet another thread about wanting free transmutation charges.

[Freya.9075]

This game has so many options when it comes to fashion and customizing your character. I like that some of the skins needs a little effort to get. There are just a few skins that needs a huge investment. When i look through the wardrobe and see a skin i want but don't have, I check how to get it and get excited if it's a collection or needs some sort of effort to get cause it gives me a goal. Fashion is a huge part of this game and there are so many "free" skins that takes no effort to get. All you need is gold to buy them. Many times just a few silvers. 

And transmutation charges won't be an issue if you actively play the game. I only struggled in the beginning and I don't touch pvp or wvw unless I have to. But this part of the topic has been discussed so many times so I don't really have anything more to add to it. i understand the frustration when you first start the game, but it is what it is. 

[casualkenny.9817]

23 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

(sigh)  Seems like yet another thread about wanting free transmutation charges.

Spoiler

It isn't. Clearly.

 

[Valisha.8650]

I agree so much with point #2.

If game engine truly makes it impossible to mish and mash armor classes skins, least they could do is provide a cosmetic armor type change for your character via gemstore.

[PinkTacoLover.7603]

3 hours ago, casualkenny.9817 said:

 game/server crash level of bug when it was tested.

how is this even possible i cant belive it 🤦‍♂️

btw:

https://i.ibb.co/mDjM8vW/bery-different-mesh.jpg

Edited September 16, 2022 by PinkTacoLover.7603

[casualkenny.9817]

1 hour ago, PinkTacoLover.7603 said:

how is this even possible i cant belive it 🤦‍♂️

btw:

https://i.ibb.co/mDjM8vW/bery-different-mesh.jpg

 

im just trying to recall from memory..... i was very interested in why the armor weights were made to be incompatible, that's why i even had a vague impression of what was said back then. i'm willing to stake 2silver 41copper on the accuracy of what i said.

 

[Zebulous.2934]

hrm, at the very least keep your oldest character as a mule. you get birthday gifts for character creation anniversaries, those gifts are progressive. A two year old character gets different gifts than a one year old character. 
keep at least one old codger in the corner of your character selection window.

[DeanBB.4268]

@OP, perhaps you're going about this backwards. If weapon type is so important to you, then start there. What professions or elites can use that weapon? Pick the one that best fits your desired playstyle. Then work on customizing the look from there.

There are a ton of skins available just on the trading post, and more did get added with EoD. Some do require effort, either content to be completed (dungeons, wvw, pvp) or achievements to be completed (Caladbolg, Eclipse, a great many more). Armor is available on the gem store as well, and if you don't want to pay cash, you can farm up gold for gems. A weekly key run will give you a shot at whatever is in the black lion chests. There are just so many options in this game. Honestly, if I never added another skin to my collection, I still wouldn't be able to use a fraction of them.

MMOs are all about keeping busy and accomplishing things. So go accomplish something. You might find that motivation is enough to get you invested in the game.