Anet would get much more money from me....

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

@"Ayakaru.6583" said:But anet has already told us

hundreds of times

that creating a set of armor, piece by piece, requires so much effort its reserved for expansion content.They actually told it once or twice, the rest is other people parroting.

Actually, more than twice. I imagine that "hundreds of times" is hyperbole, a similar rhetorical device to the one used by saying "the rest is other people parroting," — both are exaggerations of what actually happened to give the appearance of a stronger argument.

---

The point is the same regardless: the OP might be right that ANet would get more money from the OP if there were no more outfits, but they wouldn't be making more money than they are now. We don't have the raw data to do the numbers ourselves, but we can formulate a decent guess:

• Complete armor sets costs ~9 times more than outfits.
• The gem shop wouldn't sell 9 times more armor pieces (making appropriate adjustments for outfits costing ~800 gems and armor pieces costing anywhere from 125-400 gems).

Or more bluntly, it's in ANet's financial interest to choose the most efficient mix of armor sets & outfits. Without evidence to the contrary, I'll assume that we fans have drastically underestimated the costs of producing armor sets (that work for two genders over five races, and three weights).

[Susy.7529]

Anet would get much more money from me....

-

if they would release the trailer the day after tomorrow.

[Neural.1824]

They'd make a lot more money from me if they'd quit this "scarcity" kitten and just leave things in the store.

[Jokubas.4265]

Transmutation Charges are what hold me back. I'm really into cosmetics, but I barely touch them in this game because I know I'm just not going to be able to keep up on Transmutation Charges. Except for the occasional outfit that happens to really, really hit the right spot for me (since they don't use charges), I don't look at the cosmetics on the shop. If changing your look around was free, then I'd be buying cosmetics all the time.

[Obtena.7952]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

@Ashen.2907 said:OP, would you spend 7000 to 14000 gems per armor set? How many people do you thinl would?

Armor sets were never that expensive.

And that's why they stopped making them ... That's probably a more accurate value for Anet to turn a profit on them.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@"Neural.1824" said:They'd make a lot more money from me if they'd quit this "scarcity" kitten and just leave things in the store.

Their sales team disagree with you. One of the two have access to the data about purchasing patterns...

[Neural.1824]

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@"Neural.1824" said:They'd make a lot more money from me if they'd quit this "scarcity" kitten and just leave things in the store.

Their sales team disagree with you. One of the two have access to the data about purchasing patterns...

Also, water is wet.

[Fenom.9457]

@Aodlop.1907 said:If outfits items were sold individually

If they sold outfits as armor pieces there are so, so many I’d buy for 500 a piece

[Laila Lightness.8742]

Why would outfits take less time than amor set to be honest it would take same amouth of time and money

[Solori.6025]

@Neural.1824 said:

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@Neural.1824 said:They'd make a lot more money from me if they'd quit this "scarcity" kitten and just leave things in the store.

Their sales team disagree with you. One of the two have access to the data about purchasing patterns...

Also, water is wet.

:O WATERS NOT WET!!

[Tenrai Senshi.2017]

Eh, I think people look at the whole armor vs outfits argument from too much of a one dimensional perspective. People only consider the money making aspects involved, and usually debate on the premise that because outfits cost less to make, they make more money for ANet than armor sets do, and so there's no real reason for them to make armor sets instead, or that it isn't viable to do so.

But honestly this is a game, not just an online retail store, and for a lot of people playing it, entertainment value is the main draw card. Many people find that entertainment value in the "Fashion Wars" side of the game, and so put a lot of emphasis in their ability to customize their characters to whatever extent they desire. To this end, armor sets are often seen as a better alternative to outfits because of their greater capacity for customization, and adding one new armor set essentially adds hundreds, if not thousands of new possible appearance combinations, while adding a new outfit only really adds one new look.

The point I'm trying to get to here is that sometimes it's worth the extra effort and the extra cost to add something that will give more longevity to the game for a lot of its player base, even if it is less "cost effective" relative to some of the other items you can sell to players. For many players, fashion is a form of end game content and one that is more appealing to them than even a new map or new events might be. Keeping those kinds of players engaged for longer means they have more of a vested interest in the game, which in turn can lead to more sales in other areas. It's not just a case of "how much money can introducing X content net me?", sometimes it's a case of "how much player interest can I retain with X content, which might lead to more sales of Y content?" A good example of this is players who are alcoholics, and have bought many character slots just so they could make more unique characters with unique styles. Adding more customization options can lead to more character slot sales for these kinds of players, who want to try more different unique fashion combinations.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Of course, those artists that make armor don't only work on armor sets; they also work on the content that comes with new maps, etc. Thus, it's not just a matter of offering more armor sets; it's scaling back on other content, as well, thus keeping, perhaps, a different set of players invested.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:Except what they say can't be true because they sell previous armor sets for 800 gems.

First, what https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/535598/#Comment_535598 said.

Second, remember that the community asked Arenanet to release more Armor sets in the game and not on the Gem store. Releasing Armor sets on the Gem store was controversial and the "solution" wasArmor sets ingameOutfits on the gem store

Reverting that decision and starting selling Armor sets again on the Gem store will bring us back to square one. What we should be asking instead is "Please give us more Armor sets in-game"

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:Except what they say can't be true because they sell previous armor sets for 800 gems.

First, what

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/535598/#Comment_535598

said.

Second, remember that the community asked Arenanet to release more Armor sets in the game and not on the Gem store. Releasing Armor sets on the Gem store was controversial and the "solution" wasArmor sets ingameOutfits on the gem store

Reverting that decision and starting selling Armor sets again on the Gem store will bring us back to square one. What we should be asking instead is "Please give us more Armor sets in-game"

The fact of the matter is with gemstore armors we had more armors released and that's what I see people complaining mostly about. And the fact that they keep releasing armor pieces both in gemstore and as exclusive RNG drops from BLC, makes the "avoid controversy" argument dead. Anet doesn't give a kitty kitty boom boom about "controversy" when it comes to gemstore. It's all about their terrible armor creation tools which are inefficient to be monetized as fast as outfits which they made exactly for the purpose of pushing revenue.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:The fact of the matter is with gemstore armors we had more armors released and that's what I see people complaining mostly about. And the fact that they keep releasing armor pieces both in gemstore and as exclusive RNG drops from BLC, makes the "avoid controversy" argument dead. Anet doesn't give a kitty kitty boom boom about "controversy" when it comes to gemstore. It's all about their terrible armor creation tools which are inefficient to be monetized as fast as outfits which they made exactly for the purpose of pushing revenue.

They do not want to monetize Armors, that's what the community was asking them to do so long ago. "Stop releasing armor sets on the gem store!" was a very common thread title back in the day. And Arenanet listened, no more monetization of Armor on the gem store, instead they promised to release Armor sets inside the game. Why would they go back?

The game released with 32 Armor sets plus the 15 Cultural Armor sets, the 6 Legacy Armor skins, and 1 Gem store "set" (profane, krytan, primeval) . It's not that the creation tools are inefficient, it's the allocation of resources to those tools. We can all assume that while in development Guild Wars 2 had a much larger graphics team specifically to make all those skins that were in the game at release. Otherwise, if it takes 9 months to make an armor set, the game would need at least 32x9 = 288 months to be ready for release, that's 24 years, we all know it hasn't been that long in development.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:The fact of the matter is with gemstore armors we had more armors released and that's what I see people complaining mostly about. And the fact that they keep releasing armor pieces both in gemstore and as exclusive RNG drops from BLC, makes the "avoid controversy" argument dead. Anet doesn't give a kitty kitty boom boom about "controversy" when it comes to gemstore. It's all about their terrible armor creation tools which are inefficient to be monetized as fast as outfits which they made exactly for the purpose of pushing revenue.

They do not want to monetize Armors, that's what the community was asking them to do so long ago. "Stop releasing armor sets on the gem store!" was a very common thread title back in the day. And Arenanet listened, no more monetization of Armor on the gem store, instead they promised to release Armor sets inside the game. Why would they go back?

As I said already, they do keep monetizing armors, in parts, missing chests and legs because for some reason they are most difficult for them to make. It's wasier for them to monetize outfits.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@"maddoctor.2738" said:The game released with 32 Armor sets plus the 15 Cultural Armor sets, the 6 Legacy Armor skins, and 1 Gem store "set" (profane, krytan, primeval) . It's not that the creation tools are inefficient, it's the allocation of resources to those tools. We can all assume that while in development Guild Wars 2 had a much larger graphics team specifically to make all those skins that were in the game at release. Otherwise, if it takes 9 months to make an armor set, the game would need at least 32x9 = 288 months to be ready for release, that's 24 years, we all know it hasn't been that long in development.

It's exactly because tools are inefficient. It's exactly the same case as for raid content. They had backed up piles of premade assets for armors (raids) which they released in bulk during early years of game through gemstore. Then they learned they can't keep up with armor (raids) releases and they swapped to outfits.

[Tenrai Senshi.2017]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Of course, those artists that make armor don't only work on armor sets; they also work on the content that comes with new maps, etc. Thus, it's not just a matter of offering more armor sets; it's scaling back on other content, as well, thus keeping, perhaps, a different set of players invested.

But if you get a return on your investment, then you can grow your team, and have people working on both sets of content without scaling back on anything. Different forms of content are not mutually exclusive, after all.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:The fact of the matter is with gemstore armors we had more armors released and that's what I see people complaining mostly about.

Let's find out if we got more armors when they were on the gem store or not.

We got a total of 6 Armor sets on the Gem store until April 2014 (when they stopped releasing Armor sets on the gem store), that's over a duration of 20 months since release, or 1 set every 3.3 months.

Living World Season 2 added 2 Armor sets (Carapace and Luminescent) - November 2014

Heart of Thorns added 2 full Armor sets (Bladed, Leystone) + 1 Heavy Armor set (Mistward) - October 2015There is also the 3 Raid armor sets, 2 Ascended Precursor set skins (Refined Envoy, Experimental Envoy) and 1 Legendary armor set (Perfected Envoy)Also, the Ornate Guild Armor was added with Guild Halls.Ardent Glorious skin set was added with PvP League Season Five in 2016Triumphant Armor set was added with the April 19, 2016 game update together with the other 2 upgraded versions, Trimphant Hero's and Mistforged Triumphant Hero's Armor, that's 3 new WVW Armor sets.Bringing the total of armor sets between expansions to 10 Armor sets, with a duration between them of 23 months, it means we got 1 set every 2.3 months, much better than the Gem store "schedule".

Path of Fire added 5 full Armor sets (Bounty Hunter, Elonian, Funerary, Spearmarshal, Warbeast) - September 2017Halloween 2017 added the Lunatic Armor setUp to this point (May 2018) it's been 6 Armor sets in just 8 months, or 1.3 sets per month, also much better than the "Gem store" era.

Your argument that with the gemstore we got more armors released than we do now is invalid.

Edit: Glorious Armor set, Radiant armor set, Hellfire armor set and Illustrious (Ascended) Armor sets were released during the "Gem store armor era" as the only armor additions during that time, that's 4 more sets bringing the total to 10 sets over 20 months, or 1 set every 2 months. Still very close to the release schedule we have after Heart of Thorns. The period between April 2014 (end of LS1) and the release of Heart of Thorns didn't have many Armor sets released, but it was also a dead content period, and even LS2 wasn't as content heavy.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:The fact of the matter is with gemstore armors we had more armors released and that's what I see people complaining mostly about.

Let's find out if we got more armors when they were on the gem store or not.

We got a total of 6 Armor sets on the Gem store until April 2014 (when they stopped releasing Armor sets on the gem store), that's over a duration of 20 months since release, or 1 set every 3.3 months.

Living World Season 2 added 2 Armor sets (Carapace and Luminescent) - November 2014

Heart of Thorns added 2 full Armor sets (Bladed, Leystone) + 1 Heavy Armor set (Mistward) - October 2015There is also the 3 Raid armor sets, 2 Ascended Precursor set skins (Refined Envoy, Experimental Envoy) and 1 Legendary armor set (Perfected Envoy)Also, the Ornate Guild Armor was added with Guild Halls.Ardent Glorious skin set was added with PvP League Season Five in 2016Triumphant Armor set was added with the April 19, 2016 game update together with the other 2 upgraded versions, Trimphant Hero's and Mistforged Triumphant Hero's Armor, that's 3 new WVW Armor sets.Bringing the total of armor sets between expansions to 10 Armor sets, with a duration between them of 23 months, it means we got 1 set every 2.3 months, much better than the Gem store "schedule".

Path of Fire added 5 full Armor sets (Bounty Hunter, Elonian, Funerary, Spearmarshal, Warbeast) - September 2017Halloween 2017 added the Lunatic Armor setUp to this point (May 2018) it's been 6 Armor sets in just 8 months, or 1.3 sets per month, also much better than the "Gem store" era.

Your argument that with the gemstore we got more armors released than we do now is invalid.

Edit: Glorious Armor set, Radiant armor set, Hellfire armor set and Illustrious (Ascended) Armor sets were released during the "Gem store armor era" as the only armor additions during that time, that's 4 more sets bringing the total to 10 sets over 20 months, or 1 set every 2 months. Still very close to the release schedule we have after Heart of Thorns. The period between April 2014 (end of LS1) and the release of Heart of Thorns didn't have many Armor sets released, but it was also a dead content period, and even LS2 wasn't as content heavy.

Content specific armor sets would be added regardles of gemstore releases. These are exclusive rewards and you mustn't count them for your overview. Also, you can't count anything after 2016, because gemstore armors were released only in first two years of the game. So you can't compare 2 years of releases to another 4 years.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:Content specific armor sets would be added regardles of gemstore releases. These are exclusive rewards and you mustn't count them for your overview. Also, you can't count anything after 2016, because gemstore armors were released only in first two years of the game. So you can't compare 2 years of releases to another 4 years.

It's impossible to release Armor sets outside the gemstore without them being content specific... how would that work?I can count anything after 2016 because I also used the "armor/month" value.Here is a small summary (after the edit)Between release and April 2014 (the period of gem store armor) we got 1 armor every 2 months.Between Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire we got 1 armor set every 2.3 monthsAfter Path of Fire and until now we got 1 armor set every 1.3 months

The only "dead period is between April 2014 (end of LS1) and October 2015 (Heart of Thorns), that's 18 months with only 2 armor sets, but to be fair from January 2015 to October 2015 (10 months) we got absolutely nothing. Bringing the end result to about 2 armor sets in 8 months, or 1 set every 4 months, which is bad, but it was a bad era for the game anyway.

edit: Plus during the "gem store" era we only got 4 armor sets outside the gem store. 4 sets in 20 months (1 set every 5 months) is absolutely terrible. Good riddance to gem store Armor sets, now we get more Armors than ever

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:Content specific armor sets would be added regardles of gemstore releases. These are exclusive rewards and you mustn't count them for your overview. Also, you can't count anything after 2016, because gemstore armors were released only in first two years of the game. So you can't compare 2 years of releases to another 4 years.

It's impossible to release Armor sets outside the gemstore without them being content specific... how would that work?

How do you explain GW1 nostalgia armor sets? Aetherblade set? Flamesth sets and other non-specific armor sets then?

It's easier for them to create and monetize outfits, that's why they moved from armors in gemstore. No matter how much PR gymnastics are used to explain this it's the only reason to ever create outfit framework in the first place. Because why would they create outfits at all instead of monetizing more armors instead? Because outfit creation tools are superior to armors. And you can see this on your screen. outfits have better textures, better particle effects and no pixelation on lower parts in comparison to armors.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:How do you explain GW1 nostalgia armor sets? Aetherblade set? Flamesth sets and other non-specific armor sets then?

Weren't those all on the gem store????I want an in-game acquired armor set that is not content specific.

[Emprer.7256]

9 freaking months for a set!? Idk man...

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:How do you explain GW1 nostalgia armor sets? Aetherblade set? Flamesth sets and other non-specific armor sets then?

Weren't those all on the gem store????I want an in-game acquired armor set that is not content specific.

Everything is in-game reward with gold2gem conversion : )))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))