Can we have an honest conversation about "Outfits?"

[IndigoSundown.5419]

This is tangential, but it does offer a third option. I've said it before, but I think I did so on the old board.

What if ANet were to:

• Create wardrobe slots, such as other MMO's (LotRO, iirc, had them). ANet could provide one for free, then offer more for sale, or just sell them.
• Players would insert armor piece skins into wardrobe slots using transformation charges, as we do now.
• Players could switch between slots with one click, the way we can currently switch outfits (i.e., no charge needed to switch).
• If a player wanted to change an armor piece skin in a wardrobe slot to a different armor piece skin, they'd do so using a transformation charge, as we do now.

This idea would:

• Allow players to make their own outfits, retain the color scheme and switch at will between wardrobe slots with no charge cost.
• Give ANet another utility item to sell (the slots).

This idea could:

• Likely reduce the number of transformation charges sold, but still result in greater revenue for ANet due to the sale of slots.
• Enhance the value of individual armor pieces sold in the store because it would provide a platform for players to more easily use them.
• Increase the likelihood that players would want to seek out more "looks" for their characters. As it is now, the chore of switching armor pieces individually and at cost is a motivation to stick with one look. Giving players more things to pursue is never a bad thing in the MMO business model -- in fact, it's what that model requires.

As to the OP's conversation, I believe that outfits do serve a purpose and that nothing in an MMO is likely to be for everyone, but don't blame him(?) for asking for something that gets brought up nearly every time ANet releases a new outfit.

[Lazze.9870]

@Leo G.4501 said:And I think outfits are plenty creative. Are they the level of personal custom character creation as the likes of perhaps City of Heroes? No, it never was, but for what it's for (making a great looking character), it works, IMO.

Plenty creative how? Because of its four dye slots?You know what game you're playing, right? A game where you'd normaly have six armor pieces all seperately dyeable. Outfits gimps the fashion potential of this game, the ONLY two arguments for outfits worth anything in this debate is the fact that it's easier for Anet to make them and sell them, and they give players an option for an alternative look to switch forth and back between without transmuting or changing the armor.

That being said, the worst offense with this new dervish outfit is how the bones literally stick to and stretch with the cloths of the outfit. In the original game, those bones behaved independently. How can they make an outfit look worse in a sequel 11 years after the original was made.

[Lonami.2987]

@"Shmanka.4628" said:It's probably the most frustrating item in every Gem Store purchase. I was about to purchase the Primeval Dervish Armor because of my GW1 Nostalgia, then, I stopped myself. It's an outfit. Again...

Why I think Outfits are bad for the game;

1. They allow no level of customization, with the exception of dyes.
2. The purchase in the Gem Store is never worth it financially compared to Weapon Skins or Armor Skins, heck... even Glider and Mount Skins.
3. Some of the outfits are tailored towards some races better than others, it's intuitive that Sylvari, Norn and Human get more aesthetic appeal than Asura or Charr.

Why I think Outfits are good for the game;

1. They help bring some Nostalgia and tie in Lore to customers like myself.
2. They can bring in looks that are "out of world"
3. They are purely cosmetic and offer no functional in-game differences.

I would propose that the GW2 Team heavily consider changing all outfits to individual armor pieces, and discontinue outfits how they are currently made. I know personally I would purchase more items from the Gem Store if they were individualistic armor pieces.

Some outfits need to be outfits for technical reasons, since the model is one single piece, but most outfits could be transformed into armor easily.

I think ArenaNet needs to move to a custom wardrobe system, where you design your own outfits, merging both skins and outfits for good. Let me elaborate:

• Transmutation charges and such are no longer a thing. Now you have a wardrobe tab where you equip skins, and these automatically replace the appearance of the equipment.
• You can save your custom appearance, and store it as an outfit, saving both the pieces and the dyes. So, a wardrobe template. You have three slots per account, and can buy more at the gem store.
• Helms, shoulders, gloves, and boots can be combined freely, with no restrictions.
• Chests and legs can only be combined when the weight matches.
• Some pieces can cover multiple slots. We already see this ingame with some chests that hide your shoulders automatically. This approach will be applied for outfits that have single pieces that can't be split for mix and matching, like some of the dresses.
• Anyone can use any skin from any weight. You can have a necromancer wearing heavy armor skins if that's what you want.
• Some helm skins can be combined, letting you wear a hat with sunglasses.
• Hairstyles become part of this system as well. You need to buy each hairstyle before using it, just like a skin. Self-style hair kits would become hairstyle unlocks, and permanent hair stylist contracts would become permanent total makeover kit contracts.

This is the best solution for the future, in my opinion.

[ugrakarma.9416]

I like both armor and outfits.

But there is an imbalance, the feeling that there are few armors.

It is known that the development of armors is slow, but is not possible any automation tool to improve this?

[Ardid.7203]

Just for reference.https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/14819/outfits-vs-armor-skins-which-do-you-prefer/p1Outfits could be good as placeholders for leveling or while you get enough transmutation charges (I've never had this problem. I don't believe it is so important except for people who changes appearance every single day, without giving too much thinking to what they are using, or for true altaholics). They can also be good for using on special ocassions, as long as the outfits really gives the complete experience for such ocassion (Only the cultural sets, chef and wedding, manage to do it, IMO).

The problem is outfits are the base now. They are what we are supposed to wear. Armors are just an exception.

[White Kitsunee.4620]

Personally while i miss getting gemstore armor sets in thr game, (i really miss those) i do feel like outfits have their place. The two best uses for outfits i can think of is:Allows you to experiment with different armor classes, there isnt any medium or light armor skins that could be mistaken for heavy armor but thats where outfits come in.

Second it allows you to not waste transmutation charges, which im sure lots of people like.

[Plautze.6290]

@"White Kitsunee.4620" said:Personally while i miss getting gemstore armor sets in thr game, (i really miss those) i do feel like outfits have their place. The two best uses for outfits i can think of is:Allows you to experiment with different armor classes, there isnt any medium or light armor skins that could be mistaken for heavy armor but thats where outfits come in.

Second it allows you to not waste transmutation charges, which im sure lots of people like.

Sure, why would I want to waste any of my 120something transmutation charges? :pOn a more serious note: Some of the outfits look really awesome, but seeing all those royal guards running around (at first I took them to be one person until I saw an Asura running around in it...) make me fear for my individuality. Why bother finding "le" armor combination when we all end up looking the same?Still, dat noble outfit!

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

@"Laila Lightness.8742" said:Outfits are bad for breaks immersion a heavy amored warrior should not have defense if wearing a dress

Run a Google Image Search for "Fortunately I was wearing my armor"... (The first version I ever saw of this joke was in Dragon magazine in the early 1980s.)

[Artemisa.9013]

I like outfits as much as I like armor skins. In fact, there are a few outfits that look great on my characters, and I definitely don't want to lose that.I know a lot of players who hate outfits, but I also know a lot of players who enjoy them. I don't think it's a good idea to simply banish outfits and take that away from some people just because other people don't like them. The more diversity the game has to offer, the better.

[Cragga the Eighty Third.60]

I have one issue with outfits.

There are so many helm/mask/glasses/hat skins in the game that could bring out your personality a little more. You can turn off the built-in helm for an outfit, but you can't replace it with a different helm. I wish all outfits were bare-headed, with just the helm included as a separate armor skin. That way, you could wear the outfit with your glasses or crown or witch hat or whatever.

[czerwoni.9563]

@"Shmanka.4628" said:It's probably the most frustrating item in every Gem Store purchase. I was about to purchase the Primeval Dervish Armor because of my GW1 Nostalgia, then, I stopped myself. It's an outfit. Again...

Why I think Outfits are bad for the game;

1. They allow no level of customization, with the exception of dyes.
2. The purchase in the Gem Store is never worth it financially compared to Weapon Skins or Armor Skins, heck... even Glider and Mount Skins.
3. Some of the outfits are tailored towards some races better than others, it's intuitive that Sylvari, Norn and Human get more aesthetic appeal than Asura or Charr.

Why I think Outfits are good for the game;

1. They help bring some Nostalgia and tie in Lore to customers like myself.
2. They can bring in looks that are "out of world"
3. They are purely cosmetic and offer no functional in-game differences.

I would propose that the GW2 Team heavily consider changing all outfits to individual armor pieces, and discontinue outfits how they are currently made. I know personally I would purchase more items from the Gem Store if they were individualistic armor pieces.

i like some of the outfits but the shoulders bug me on the grenth one so i haven't gotten it yet, but yes i got the dervish one because gw1 dervish is what i started as lol.

[Leo G.4501]

@Lazze.9870 said:

@Leo G.4501 said:And I think outfits are plenty creative. Are they the level of personal custom character creation as the likes of perhaps City of Heroes? No, it never was, but for what it's for (making a great looking character), it works, IMO.

Plenty creative how? Because of its four dye slots?

Plenty creative on the developer's side. That is, they can be more creative when making them rather than designing inside of the box that armor pieces forces them to design around.

You know what game you're playing, right? A game where you'd normaly have six armor pieces all seperately dyeable.

When the majority of those 6 pieces look bad or the same as dozens of other pieces for that slot, what creativity are you talking about?

Outfits gimps the fashion potential of this game, the ONLY two arguments for outfits worth anything in this debate is the fact that it's easier for Anet to make them and sell them, and they give players an option for an alternative look to switch forth and back between without transmuting or changing the armor.

How about that the outfits look more polished, detailed and varied compared to a set of armor?

That being said, the worst offense with this new dervish outfit is how the bones literally stick to and stretch with the cloths of the outfit. In the original game, those bones behaved independently. How can they make an outfit look worse in a sequel 11 years after the original was made.

It's a good question. None of it relates to outfits, but gear design as a whole in GW2. Personally, I'd prefer they focus on making races varied and interesting and let us put outfits on them rather than trying to design more intricate armor sets that ultimately come off as overly designed. Again, if this were FFXIV where they have fewer race body types to fit armor on, they could likely make amazing looking sets. But we don't and they can't.

[Cyprien.4208]

I don't hate outfits but do wish more options to maybe hide shoulders on outfits as well maybe use the helmet armor piece. I however think there is a lack of armors within the game and not tons of choices or great choice to choose from.

[Bish.8627]

I like outfits. But, I wish they would separate each part on some of them. I would like to mix them with my own armour. Say have Taimi's legs with older skins like Scarlets jacket. Outfits being a cover all wallpaper isn't great. I actually prefer the old skin system more even if you have to use currency to change the skin. You could just include charges with them.

[Pifil.5193]

@Steve The Cynic.3217 said:

@"Laila Lightness.8742" said:Outfits are bad for breaks immersion a heavy amored warrior should not have defense if wearing a dress

Run a Google Image Search for "Fortunately I was wearing my armor"... (The first version I ever saw of this joke was in

Dragon

magazine in the early 1980s.)

Fantastic! I had forgotten that joke!

God I feel old now.

[Leo G.4501]

@"Cyprien.4208" said:I don't hate outfits but do wish more options to maybe hide shoulders on outfits as well maybe use the helmet armor piece. I however think there is a lack of armors within the game and not tons of choices or great choice to choose from.

I personally feel they can take an extra step regarding outfit customization by allowing certain parts to be turned off/on which can be unique to the outfit and accessible through the outfit tab. For example:

With this outfit, along with its dye channels, there could be 3 check boxes. 1 for downed hood, another for no hood and a 3rd for bone ornaments. All they would do is toggle an option for the outfit that only needs forethought to layer to make available (that is, it doesn't require more time to design or create it, just knowledge that while you're creating it, you want these parts to be toggle-able). This gives you the option to have the outfit but with the hood down around your neck/shoulders or gone completely and the option to turn the large bones on the lower portion (and the tail for Charr) off.

Compared to Awakened outfit.

Also 3 check boxes, one for helmet, one for ribbons and the third for the swords allows you to vary the look of the outfit.

I'm sure there could be an example of an outfit where you might want to turn the shoulder portion off or perhaps the torso portion off but couldn't think of one before I have to leave for work.

They could even maybe go a slight extra step beyond even that and allow headpieces to show over an outfit but that might take a good amount of effort but likely far less than trying to split outfits into armor pieces.

[Danikat.8537]

@STIHL.2489 said:I'd love to see some Race Exclusive Outfits.

Like a series of Outfits just for Charr, that embrace Charr culture, maybe even set on theme like Iron, Ash and Blood Legion, and then make other Series for each of the Races.

Also Race Themed Mounts!

As for outfits, one of the best things about Outfits, is that they can be more then just Armor, and I would love to see them embrace or push those limits, how far can they go with them.

There are 3 outfits which work that way - the Common Clothing, Wedding Outfit and Chef's Outfit all change depending on the race of the character wearing them, with each version themed for the race (for example the sylvari ones are all made of leaves). But I agree it would be nice to have more like that, and some specific to different aspects of the various cultures.

[Ashen.2907]

I have purchased a few outfits, and might have purchased others where the only thing stopping me was the shoulders, if they could be unchecked.

[Biff.5312]

The only thing I want changed about outfits is that if you opt out of the head piece, I'd like to still show the equipped head piece underneath so I can customise my hat.

If they broke every outfit into parts, they'd charge enough per part to make it much more expensive to get the whole outfit. FOR SURE. I don't want that.

[MithranArkanere.8957]

When it comes to outfits, the very least I want is to have the head piece separate from the rest of the outfit.There would be a new slot in the outfit and dye panels for the "Hat", and most outfit headgear and standalone headgear skins that are usable across armor classes would become usable in that slot (but also as skins for helmets). Then we'd be able to hide or show the Hat slot independently from the rest of the Outfit and dye it separately.

This way the number of ways you can combine armor and ouftis would go from 4 to 6:

• Show armor + helmet
• Show outfit + hat
• Show just armor
• Show just outfit.
• + Show armor + hat.
• + Show outfit + helmet

Imagine the possible combinations and new customization opportunities this would open.

Hats must come back!

---

It would be even better if breathers and backs also worked like that:

Breathers would no longer be armor, and the head armor would be also used underwater. But the outfit panel would get a "Breather" slot where you can select a breather skin to be used there, that would replace the head visuals while underwater if enabled. Since there's lots of ascended breather recipes that would be useless that people may have bought, instead refunding their cost, some would be changed to craft new Breather skins by recycling existing helmet skins that would work nicely as breathers as they cover the mouth or the entire face in a way that looks like it's sealed or magically surrounded, like the Gas mask. For example, the "Rampager" ascended breather recipes (Coalforge) would instead craft the Sorrow's Embrace helmets as breather skins, as they could work nicely as breather skins and the ascended prefix for rampager weapons is "Forgemaster".Breather items would be unequipped, and there would be a cheap mystic forge recipe to turn them into an equivalent helmet.

As for the back, the corresponding stats would be moved to the amulet, its two infusion slots would go to the two accessories by infusing them like we did with backs and rings, and they would instead be just a visual selected in the outfit panel. Some of them would get dye channels, specially those with a corresponding dyable glider.

---

And even better if the outfit panel also had at least 5 slots for visual 'auras' like particles, glows and colorations, so they'd be unlockable there, when equipped they would replace whatever auras your gear and upgrades have. So the ones in gear and upgrades would be like minis, letting you try them out before unlocking them, specially if they are tradeable, but once you bind it or consume it to unlock it, you get the visual permanently in the account usable by all characters.

[Cerioth.7062]

Honestly? I like both outfits and skins, for their own purposes.

[TheOrlyFactor.8341]

@"DawnSketch.7105" said:I'd much rather pay a little more and get both an outfit and an unlock of all the pieces as skins.

You say this but as soon as Anet does introduce something like this people cry and complain about the price point. I'm convinced the same thing would happen with an outfit with unlockable piece skins. I mean, look at the latest batch of adoptable mount skins. There's an option to get the mount skin you want but that thread exploded in people whining about how 1200 gems was "too much".

[Glenstorm.4059]

I like outfits. They do not provide any non-cosmetic advantages, so no one should feel compelled to buy them. They are presumably less labor-intensive to create since they don't have to be rigged to individual body parts for each race/sex combo, which frees developer time to devote to new content. They also do not use up Transmutation Charges, which is very much appreciated. Also, IMO, they're well-done for the most part, though there are a few hideous outfits (male Daydreamer's, I'm looking at you.)

[Hyper Cutter.9376]

Do we really need to have this argument every single time an outfit gets released? It's like clockwork.

Anet gives us armor in-game and outfits in the gem store. That's been their policy since LS2.

@tacticalevilnoodlefox.5694 said:I generally don't use outfits because I prefer to mix and match my own armor sets. Though I would really love it if they came out with outfits that are more in line with the clothing tonics. Casual, simple clothes (not like the ball gowns and tuxedos) that look like something my character would wear when relaxing in their downtime. It would be really nice for role players and actually make the outfits something different then the armor you can already get in game which may satisfy the people that normally wouldn't like them.Good news, you can convert the clothing tonics to outfits now.

[Ardid.7203]

So, outfits don't require transmutation charges. But the only reason to save transmutation charges is to use them in armor to personalize it and make it unique.What is the point of saving transmutation charges if you are never going to use them? I don't get this reasoning...