Can we have an honest conversation about "Outfits?"

[Jumpin Lumpix.6108]

I agree with op I dislike outfits and the outfit system. It doesn't even make sense to wear them, they are basically dyeable transformation tonics, also why would you want to replace your custom mix and match armor anyways, with something generic?

[Leo G.4501]

@Lazze.9870 said:

@"Leo G.4501" said:this 6-pieces-connected-to -stats system won't allow

actual

creative freedom.

GW2 is actually probably

the

game I've come across with the best system allowing you to customize your look without "outfits" or "layered armor skins".

Well let me tell you about this game with HUGE creative freedom. For one, it doesn't restrict you to 6 (technically 7) parts that you could customize, rather any part of a character, from its face, to its eyes and ears, to its neck and size/type of head, could be customized. Ignoring the specific aspects that could be related to character creation, the amount of options for clothing type, texture and color could never be touched by a 7-piece armor system when considering clothes alone. But it doesn't end there. On top of the clothes options, you could customize the body of the character to an extend you could effectively create a unique race. Further still, customizing aspects like how the character stands, walks and runs, the choosing of animations for skills, dying the skill effects like you would armor...all that within multiple templates so that you could swap to alternate highly customized cosmetic creations with but a choice in a menu.

GW2 is far and away from being the best customization systems, even when not compared to the actual bests. It's rife with restrictions and pitfalls (why does my outfits not keep their unique dying? why does cultural skin ascended bar you from putting it on another race rather than just not show up when equipped? why must I have swaths of my inventory used to have multiple looks?). I'm not saying with all of that, that this is all a lost cause, just that it is not the best and it can be better...never the best tho.

My perspective is, GW2 may not do custom armor as well as some of its competition, but what it does do best (or nearly the best) is its races. You could almost fit Tera in there for race variety but the fact they lock most of their new classes by race is the point they are rocket propelled to the worst. I heard ESO is quite good with its races too, lore-wise, but IMO, they still look like reskinned humans with tails, ears and tusks. Not only are GW2's races distinct with fleshed out world building around them, but they're varied visually as well as their speech, tone and attitude. If you want to back something that GW2 does great, why not its races?

[Frostfang.5109]

I want outfits that show more skin in male characters!

[sokeenoppa.5384]

@Frostfang.5109 said:I want outfits that show more skin in male characters!

Yeah. Borat suit or go home

[kharmin.7683]

@sokeenoppa.5384 said:

@Frostfang.5109 said:I want outfits that show more skin in male characters!

Yeah. Borat suit or go home

I choose the latter. {shudder}

[SkullsandRoses.5803]

@"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.

While Im happy to see you have a valid points on both sides of the debate, I don't think outfits should be converted to armor. The only change actually I see that I would like to make to outfits as a whole are to toggle the shoulders on/off as most of them are too big especially for female characters/races.

There are tons of armor sets:

1. gemstore purchases
2. 8 dungeons
3. WVW /Pve skins
4. Hall of monuments from GW1 players
5. Cultural sets for all races
6. Expansions (multiple sets)
7. LWS Maps (multiple pieces)
8. Legendary armorAm I forgetting any???

If you have acquired all of these, then I can see you wanting more. If you haven't then you can go after more skins in this way. Outfits should always stay outfits. Its easy to purchase and easy to wear. Looks great on lower level toons who have crappy looking armor unless they use transmutes and helps fund the gem-store. Such a popular topic yet with tall of the armor available I can never quite understand why people want the change?

[Zin Dau.1749]

Outfits are only available from Gem Store. That's not going to benefit the vast majority of the customers.

[Sylvari.2953]

I've only bought 2 Outfits so far. I wear them on my lowbie PvP characters and on my leveling alts to hide the ugly low lvl armor. But GW2's true endgame is Fashion Wars so lvl80 is about mix-n-matching, hands down. ;)

[Samnang.1879]

i think they have too much on their plate... and not enough chefs...

[Thar.9465]

I'd welcome it if outfits were abandoned completely. A single armor set adds more customization options than 20 outfits could and it would need only one great part for me to want it, unlike with outfits which need to be outright perfect.I made the mistake of buying one once because I thought an aspect I didn't like wouldn't bother me that much. I was terribly wrong. After a few days I couldn't stand the buttcape anymore and never used the outfit again. As a result I'll probabloy never buy one again.As for the "need" to make single sets for every weight class. It doesn't really matter anymore whether they look distinct. Specific looks for weight classes have already been thrown out of the window with outfits, so they could look all the same for all I care. In fact, it would be welcome, since that would probably add more variety, which is still severly lacking with still no real pants for light armor or the overwhelming amount of trenchcoats for medium armor.

[Leo G.4501]

@Samnang.1879 said:i think they have too much on their plate... and not enough chefs...

I would assume, if they have too much on their plates, then their chefs are doing too good a job filling said plate...

[Leo G.4501]

@"Thar.9465" said:I'd welcome it if outfits were abandoned completely. A single armor set adds more customization options than 20 outfits could and it would need only one great part for me to want it, unlike with outfits which need to be outright perfect.I made the mistake of buying one once because I thought an aspect I didn't like wouldn't bother me that much. I was terribly wrong. After a few days I couldn't stand the buttcape anymore and never used the outfit again. As a result I'll probabloy never buy one again.As for the "need" to make single sets for every weight class. It doesn't really matter anymore whether they look distinct. Specific looks for weight classes have already been thrown out of the window with outfits, so they could look all the same for all I care. In fact, it would be welcome, since that would probably add more variety, which is still severly lacking with still no real pants for light armor or the overwhelming amount of trenchcoats for medium armor.

Well good news! 70% of your armor sets will be buttcapes too so you can hate 70% of the skins that take 1600% longer to make XD

[Thar.9465]

@Leo G.4501 said:

@"Thar.9465" said:I'd welcome it if outfits were abandoned completely. A single armor set adds more customization options than 20 outfits could and it would need only one great part for me to want it, unlike with outfits which need to be outright perfect.I made the mistake of buying one once because I thought an aspect I didn't like wouldn't bother me that much. I was terribly wrong. After a few days I couldn't stand the buttcape anymore and never used the outfit again. As a result I'll probabloy never buy one again.As for the "need" to make single sets for every weight class. It doesn't really matter anymore whether they look distinct. Specific looks for weight classes have already been thrown out of the window with outfits, so they could look all the same for all I care. In fact, it would be welcome, since that would probably add more variety, which is still severly lacking with still no real pants for light armor or the overwhelming amount of trenchcoats for medium armor.

Well good news! 70% of your armor sets will be buttcapes too so you can hate 70% of the skins that take 1600% longer to make XD

Frankly, I'd still prefer that. At least there's a chance the other parts are usable.

[Umut.5471]

I like outfits because I don't like cloth-type light armor skins, I can use plate armor with my Reaper that way. They should allow transmuting heavy armor skins to light armor as well imo. (and vice versa ofc)

[Shmanka.4628]

Can we get a dev response? This seems to be a topic worth discussion.

[Zeivu.3615]

Outfits have a place and I do like them, but there is also a place for armor skins as well. I would love more variations and more things to customize and play with without being shoe-horned into an outfit all the time.

[Zin Dau.1749]

@Leo G.4501 said:

@"Thar.9465" said:I'd welcome it if outfits were abandoned completely. A single armor set adds more customization options than 20 outfits could and it would need only one great part for me to want it, unlike with outfits which need to be outright perfect.I made the mistake of buying one once because I thought an aspect I didn't like wouldn't bother me that much. I was terribly wrong. After a few days I couldn't stand the buttcape anymore and never used the outfit again. As a result I'll probabloy never buy one again.As for the "need" to make single sets for every weight class. It doesn't really matter anymore whether they look distinct. Specific looks for weight classes have already been thrown out of the window with outfits, so they could look all the same for all I care. In fact, it would be welcome, since that would probably add more variety, which is still severly lacking with still no real pants for light armor or the overwhelming amount of trenchcoats for medium armor.

Well good news! 70% of your armor sets will be buttcapes too so you can hate 70% of the skins that take 1600% longer to make XD

Bad news! They can make 1 million outfits, and I will still own ZERO outfits.

[kharmin.7683]

@Shmanka.4628 said:Can we get a dev response? This seems to be a topic worth discussion.Dev response to what? If they haven't yet chimed in, necro-ing this thread probably won't get their response either.

[mindcircus.1506]

@"Shmanka.4628" said:Can we get a dev response? This seems to be a topic worth discussion.

No it really doesn't.It's mainly just the usual self-martyring consumers hyperbolizing choices they don't agree with as "bad for the game".There isn't much actual discussion going on.

[RoseofGilead.8907]

@Shmanka.4628 said:Can we get a dev response? This seems to be a topic worth discussion.

They have responded to such things in the past. If they responded to this one, they'd just be repeating what they've already said about the topic.

[moony.5780]

I wish shoulders could be hidden in outfits! a lot of outfits are unusable because of the shoulder 😞

[shrew.3059]

On 5/18/2018 at 7:41 AM, Shmanka.4628 said:

Can we get a dev response? This seems to be a topic worth discussion.

 

This is a suggestion box, not the Moscow–Washington hotline.

[medivh.4725]

I just want each Equipment Template to store its own outfit, so I can pull off more outfit and different looks out of just 1 character. So that I may want to purchase more outfits. 

Think this way, ET1 outfit 1. ET2 outfit 2. ET3 outfit 3. So on

[The Greyhawk.9107]

I've always been curious on exactly how a thread this old gets necro'd, like, how does a person manage to stumble on this thread without being aware that its been three years since the last comment?

[Tyncale.1629]

8 minutes ago, The Greyhawk.9107 said:

I've always been curious on exactly how a thread this old gets necro'd, like, how does a person manage to stumble on this thread without being aware that its been three years since the last comment?

Kharmin digs them up when Moony started a new one, then Moony decides to reply in each of the threads Kharmin has digged up.  🙂 

Edited October 25, 2021 by Tyncale.1629