Mix and match outfits and armor

[mathion.8549]

I have an idea regarding player armor hide/show options that would hugely improve character appearance variety (not that it NEEDS it, but it'd be nice to have) and the ability to wear certain things while wearing outfits.

Currently, if one has an outfit equipped and has the outfit option checked, whatever armor they're wearing disappears and the outfit shows up. But there are a LOT of helmet options that are hidden by the outfit. If the helmet is clicked as "show" the outfit's helmet shows instead.

For those of us who prefer the outfits to the armors, this means helmet armor skin options are pretty pointless. My idea is fairly simple: Let the user choose which helmet to show on outfits (or not, as the case may be). Howsoever it's implemented, being able to show either the armor helmet, or the outfit helmet, or no helmet, while wearing the outfit would at least make those who think the helmet skins that are cool would be worth getting. As it is now, there's no incentive to getting a helmet skin if one thinks their armor skin appearances aren't all that great (and leather armor has so few good options).

Anyone else think this is a good idea? And for the devs, can this even be done?

[Dante.1763]

From my understanding of what the devs have put out about outfits, no it cannot.

Outfits are their own armor weight so it goes

LightMediumHeavyOutfit

And armor weights cannot be mixed and matched.

[mathion.8549]

@"Dante.1763" said:From my understanding of what the devs have put out about outfits, no it cannot.

Outfits are their own armor weight so it goes

LightMediumHeavyOutfit

And armor weights cannot be mixed and matched.

Can not isn't possible in coding. The implementation may be difficult, but it's not impossible. Especially when a part can be "hidden". If one couldn't hide any part of either outfit or armor, then the implementation would more difficult. But in coding, the equivalent of "or" means it could display whatever armor the character has since it's a hide/show option either way.

What they probably meant was that it would be too much work to do for little gain. My point in making my pitch was that those of use who only do outfits because we prefer them to the armors would then spend gems on getting helmet skins that would look great with the outfits, rather than the helm the outfit came with. That provides a financial incentive to do this.

Otherwise, I'd be tempted to ask for a mix and match across the armors/outfits, but I figure that's far too much work to even suggest.

Can't hurt to ask, after all. And if one can provide the right motives, in a virtual environment, it can be done, even if it's not an easy thing to do.

[Dante.1763]

@mathion.8549 said:

@Dante.1763 said:From my understanding of what the devs have put out about outfits, no it cannot.

Outfits are their own

armor weight

so it goes

LightMediumHeavyOutfit

And armor weights cannot be mixed and matched.

Can not isn't possible in coding. The implementation may be difficult, but it's not impossible. Especially when a part can be "hidden". If one couldn't hide any part of either outfit or armor, then the implementation would more difficult. But in coding, the equivalent of "or" means it could display whatever armor the character has since it's a hide/show option either way.

What they probably meant was that it would be too much work to do for little gain. My point in making my pitch was that those of use who only do outfits because we prefer them to the armors would then spend gems on getting helmet skins that would look great with the outfits, rather than the helm the outfit came with. That provides a financial incentive to do this.

Otherwise, I'd be tempted to ask for a mix and match across the armors/outfits, but I figure that's far too much work to even suggest.

Can't hurt to ask, after all. And if one can provide the right motives, in a virtual environment, it can be done, even if it's not an easy thing to do.

In this case it is impossible, im sorry. Each armor weight(including the fourth, outfits) is rigged at entirely different points the skeleton/mesh, and they dont function together at all.

@Dante.1763 said:

@Tails.9372 said:

@Dante.1763 said:

@Tails.9372 said:

@Atticus.7194 said:light, medium and heavy armor have different rigging points that allows them to be combined without looking ridicActually they don't, they're just a lot of misplaced textures on the medium armor but this can be solved though multiple ways (not to mention that they should fix the misplaced textures regardless).

Is there proof they do not, because im more inclined to believe there absolutely is.Sure, just go to the wardrobe and look at the more basic clothing (you have to use the glorious brigandine for medium armor due to a lack of alternatives). The basics are always the same regardless of weight class, everything else is skin dependent.

More basic, as in lack of decoration, or like starting clothing?

Also forgive me for pointing this out but

there

are differences.

These are from an older post in 2017:

@Machiavell.7396 said:As a player who played this game since release, let me clarify it for you. Wishes and polls aside, what you suggest is not possible in game's engine. Back in the day, you could actually preview multiple weights of armor at the same time, but all you got from it was a bunch of glitched out textures. Game's engine works with certain skeletons and these skeletons have different mesh for armors and pants. This is why medium armors in majority are trenchcoats, and because of different hook spots and whatever, it's impossible to effectively mix and match armor pieces that in some cases go on top of each other's hook point and literally flip your game inside out. Gloves, Boots, Helmets and Shoulders have same hook spots so that can be added across multiple weights, and won't break anything, BUT they work ONLY because they are prepared for that ahead of time, as I remember that previewing heavy pants with light/medium shoes back then also created unsettling graphical anomalies.

Technical part aside, outfits broke enough immersion already, I would prefer actually to have armor weights as they are now, to preserve at least some of classes originality.

@Sojourner.4621 said:

@DreamyLove.8947 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@DreamyLove.8947 said:

@shejesa.3712 said:A noble goal but it is not worth it. They would have put tons of resources into getting rid of all the clipping that medium/light/have models are bound to have. Outfits have to be in order only within their own texture and with weapons/backpack that are the same for all the weights.

we already have "clipping" problem at same weight

so i don't think this is why we can't have ignore weight

ppl who wanna mix weight, he will choose the match one

We don't have the kind of clipping problems that come with mixing weights. If you think clipping is bad now, you can't imagine how bad it is without the amount of testing/refinement they do.

I don't think ANet will ever do away with weights of armor. "Outfits" bypass that by creating a fourth weight (or fifth, if you include town clothes, which were also a unique weight that couldn't be mixed with the others).

What they could do is eliminate the requirement that "light armor" skins can only be worn by scholar classes. Since you can appear to be in metal armor using outfits, there's no longer a gamplay reason for the restriction. (That wouldn't be cheap to accomplish; it would just be a lot cheaper than allowing mixed weights.)

i am not thikng clipping is badbut also i don't thinkg that is a why we can't do ignore weight

also when u preview skinu can see all weight they near the same line base on body

and i think only reason is they don't want, they didn't do, not they can't do by current engine

You're misunderstanding the fundamental problem. It is in fact a game engine limitation. The armor pieces themselves actually anchor to different places on the skeleton... and when you mix them it tries to put those anchor points together, condensing the skeleton in weird ways. the term "clipping" is an inadequate description for what happens here... You used to be able to preview mix and match, which worked fine when using med pants with med tops, etc. The moment you mixed a med top with, say, a heavy armor though things would happen like your character's torso shortening, or the character's waist turning inside out... for an example of what can happen when something causes the mesh to condense in a way it was not supposed to (not an armor issue but very similar to how some of these mixes behaved in preview)....

I tried tracking down the Developer post on the subject because they did get asked and they did give an answer(amounting to each armor weight is rigged separately.) but it was at the earliest in 2012 when the

FIRST

of these threads appeared.

edit and to further clarify: Town clothes/outfits are the fourth "armor type".

edit 2: this is a qoute from Curtis Johnson"

We do understand and sincerely apologize that there are creative combinations of town clothes that will not exist anymore. Many have asked why remove town clothes as a concept. It boils down to we believe better armor skinning and the outfit system is something we can add more options to more often and will produce a better supported RP game for everyone with more variety in the future. In short, a healthier game.

To expand more on what I mean by better support, It helps if you think of town clothes as a 4th weight class of armor. Clothing was meant to offer visual options that break the class roles, however we were never completely happy with the way it was isolated from the rest of the game and still felt largely the same. Many pieces could have easily been mistaken for light or medium armor. In many ways it was more akin to building an alt character because town-clothes and armor were so separated. Additionally, every time we added something to town-clothes, it didn’t really help someone building their light, medium, or heavy look. And there was no way to add combat gear fairly without creating 3 versions on the back end (light, medium, and heavy). As a customization platform and sustainable expansion design it left a lot to be desired.

When we started looking at bringing more of the clothing back into armor with mix and match styles there are some fundamental incompatible things between weight classes. (part of how we set up every armor to allow many dye channels and styles per piece).. There really is no way at this point over six years since we started development to make absolutely everything work together. So we needed something new to continue to grow in the future.

Outfits give us a way to create highly stylized looks that aren’t constrained to armor slots or weight class. In addition to armor skins that are easier and cheaper to collect across characters and the account dye system we do believe the options across a players whole account are much more attractive now. You’ll see more outfits coming out this summer and additions to the game more often usable by your characters. We try not to allow too much ‘hoarder’ design where we just keep stacking more and more options on leaving lots of unsupported things hanging around. Yes, we do have to give up some of our current closet space and clothing to fit the new wardrobe in. Again, apologies for that.

As always we ask you to try out the new system of customization and see what’s available to you. I think many people will be surprised by how many pieces have become armor compatible. We hope the benefits to the outfit system and wardrobe in terms of future support and additions will be clear, and you can look forward to more new outfits coming very soon."

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Feedback-Questions-Town-clothes-Costumes-Combat/page/18#post3823361

Edit 3: in my digging i have found that players at the time ripped the armor skins from the game files and mixed them on skeletons they also ripped from the games files and the results where bad according to the posts(no pictures i think in part because the old forums dont really exist anymore), but they had tops trying to literally merge with pants, among other issues.

You may not like the reasons, but the games code cannot be changed without screwing up way to much for it be reasonably considered "possible" due to a decision before the game was even released to the public as the dev stats. That qoute is from 2012, they started development of GW2 in 2006(Six years in development as of the date that Colin posted that qoute), and its now 2018, and theres been more things changed than there had been then.

[Astyrah.4015]

@mathion.8549 said:

@"Dante.1763" said:From my understanding of what the devs have put out about outfits, no it cannot.

Outfits are their own

armor weight

so it goes

LightMediumHeavyOutfit

And armor weights cannot be mixed and matched.

Can not isn't possible in coding. The implementation may be difficult, but it's not impossible.

it's definitely not impossible. NPCs seem to already do it though they are a special case. non-combat npcs don't move much (if at all) so there's less work regarding making armours and outfits mix and match on them.

(this here's an npc wearing the jungle explorer outfit paired with the aviator cap - though, there's a chance it could very well be a special outfit only npcs have access to)