Add Gear Inspect => More Transmutation => More Revenue $$$

Turin.6921 · January 14, 2019

I do not see the reason for this...Asking to ping skins is one of the few things in which player interaction is incentivized in hubs. There are already too few interaction incentives in open world. I would prefer not to remove the few last ones left. Especially that i really do not see merit in the argument since if you do reskin you legendary armor there is no way for the other person know that you are wearing a legendary either so the prestige effect will be the same. If you are wearing an interesting skin and people asks for a ping , they will see your are wearing a legendary already.

ProtoGunner.4953 · January 14, 2019

I am all for transparency. The GW2 philosophy of secrecy and uncertainty is something I dislike. Not to tell - which is kind of the function of this - is similar to lying. Lying that you won't tell that you are undergeared. So instead of just inspect a player you have to try it first or let people post their gear etc. It's annoying and unnecessary. At least you can see the AR in fractals. I often used it in WoW and it wasn't a problem at all.

Durzlla.6295 · January 14, 2019

If they allow gear inspecting it shouldn’t show stats or the base gear or any of that, just what skins you’re using and maybe your mini/glider/finisher etc.

If people could see stats and the like you’ll get raids and fractals where people blow a gasket because you’re not using THE metabattle build or w/e, like god forbid you’re a Druid with 2 pieces of magi/cleric gear instead of full harriers or something stupid like that.

GW Noob.6038 · January 14, 2019

@Zoe.8310 Great argument for a gear inspection option. It would also be very helpful to experienced players when they're trying to help noobs with their builds...would eliminate a ton of typing back and forth.

Illconceived Was Na.9781 · January 14, 2019

@zealex.9410 said:
@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:Is there any reason to offer "gear inspect" rather than "wardrobe inspect?"
Fashion is only concerned with wardrobe choices; looking fabulous doesn't require knowing anything about the specs, only about which skins & colors.

One could argue it would make ppl's lives easier when they look something in game they like and could just inspect to see

Again, what is the argument for gear inspection over wardrobe inspection? Is there actually any fashion reason why someone needs to know what gear someone is using?

Stand The Wall.6987 · January 14, 2019

I think this is really a ploy for gear inspection for pve content and not about skins. either way tho I don't pve so idk.

Zoe.8310 · January 15, 2019

I guess I am the minority in people that don't want to re-skin a Legendary because then ppl won't know it's a Legendary?

Zoe.8310 · January 19, 2019

@ReaverKane.7598 said:
@Zoe.8310 said:
@ReaverKane.7598 said:
@Zoe.8310 said:
@ReaverKane.7598 said:Legendary Weapons can be done in a couple minutes if you have most of the materials ready, which, given that recipes vary very little nowadays is not hard to do. Others can be bought straight out of the TP.

Also, two things about your comment....

You comment(s) and also IndigoSundown's comment(s):

@"IndigoSundown.5419" said:There's a flaw in the OP's argument. If a prestige item is reskinned, then why would other players
bother
to inspect? Are we to believe that people are going to go about inspecting everyone at random and then oohing and ahhing that some cultural weapon is really a Legendary? I could
maybe
see it if the reskin is another very rare skin. That would make it a prestige item on its own merits.
The thing about prestige is that it's in peoples' minds. Sure, the OP says that he believes possessing such an item confers prestige. It's in his head -- and that's all well and good. Whether it's in the heads of others who see his character is another matter. Then again, I guess I'm one of those who don't give a rat's kitten about what others' characters are wearing beyond mild curiosity if a particular skin looks inviting, or whether someone looks at what I have on my characters.

Both of you are indeed providing (somewhat) constructive criticism. Both of you are poking holes in my suggestion, but not providing any better alternative.There's no alternative to provide, since we don't believe there is a problem. Again, the problem is personal to you.

I'm not 100% married to Gear Inspection as a 1-stop Fix-All for the issue I am describing, and I would be open to other suggestions. If you can think of another way to encourage prestige and also encourage skinning (since skins are mostly the only rewards end-game), then I would love to hear ideas.

Dude, the game is nicknamed FashionWars 2 for a reason, there's no need to encourage skinning, since everyone already does it extensively, and some times ridiculously.

Maybe there is a Fashion Score on your setup. Maybe there is a "score" you get for how rare an item is. Maybe other players can "up-vote" or "thumbs-up" you cosmetic appearance, thus incentivizing well planned aesthetics and also incentivizing

doing

the gear inspection.

Again, no incentives needed.

I really am trying to assist ANet by brainstorming ideas how to solve an issue they created where people may, or may not, care about new rewards because they already have a cosmetic look they like, or they are

very hesitant

to re-skin something that is more valuable with something that is a lot easier to get, even though they might want the look.

That will be a minority issue. True, my ranger does look pretty much the same since 2013-2014. But that's because i like the look, and don't need to change, but then, besides the ranger i have 8 other characters, and when i do change from bows to staff and druid, i do have separate healing power gear that is skin to match the druid theme.

Afterall, we are still human, and the desire to be prestigious is very strong in a multiplayer environment. Other games drive that prestige with power-creep and "bigger numbers" in combat; and since GW2 is not about

those

kinds of numbers, we need to think outside the box about a

different kind of "number"

that people can be proud about.

Like i said, there's a lot of "true" prestige items, like auras, legendary armor, etc.

If people lose pride in their characters or their gear or w/e, their engagement in the product will decrease. Less player engagement means less revenue. Less revenue means less new content for us ALL.

If they lose pride, then, that's their personal problem. Arena Net can't be around consoling every player and tweaking the game at each individual's whim. The game has been called fashionwars for 6 years now, and suddenly you decide there's a problem and people don't do fashion enough. That simply reveals either a total detachment from the game's reality and community, or simply lack of knowledge about what you're talking about.

While you may

personally

not care about this, trust that there are many who do. And it's in the best interest of us

all

to drive player engagement as high as possible, because we all benefit the larger and more engaged the community is.

No there isn't. Again, most people do transmute skins, the whole end-game of GW2 is about cosmetics, and people play it like that.

@Zoe.8310 said:

@crepuscular.9047 said:Simple, it will lead to discrimination, just like WoW

The rest of your paragraph kinda contradicts this. Basically, you continue to say that there is already discrimination. There already is people asking for pings of gear or KP. If people want to discriminate, they are going to find a way.

What I am looking to foster is a feature that allows more personal pride and prestige in all the effort of things we have worked so hard to acquire over all these months ... years... etc.

Except it doesn't foster either pride or prestige. Not to mention, what's the prestige in using a store-bought skin? There's no such a thing as prestige in GW2, outside of owning some extremely hard to get or rare items (which i've mentioned before).

Okay, how about this for a crazy idea. Since it seems like I am in the minority that doesn't want to reskin a Legendary, what if they made transmuting Legendaries free? Just like stat swapping is free, and rune swapping is free, and sigil swapping is free.....

Thoughts?

Good compromise?

ReaverKane.7598 · January 19, 2019

@Zoe.8310 said:
@ReaverKane.7598 said:
@Zoe.8310 said:
@ReaverKane.7598 said:
@Zoe.8310 said:
@ReaverKane.7598 said:Legendary Weapons can be done in a couple minutes if you have most of the materials ready, which, given that recipes vary very little nowadays is not hard to do. Others can be bought straight out of the TP.

Also, two things about your comment....

You comment(s) and also IndigoSundown's comment(s):

@"IndigoSundown.5419" said:There's a flaw in the OP's argument. If a prestige item is reskinned, then why would other players
bother
to inspect? Are we to believe that people are going to go about inspecting everyone at random and then oohing and ahhing that some cultural weapon is really a Legendary? I could
maybe
see it if the reskin is another very rare skin. That would make it a prestige item on its own merits.
The thing about prestige is that it's in peoples' minds. Sure, the OP says that he believes possessing such an item confers prestige. It's in his head -- and that's all well and good. Whether it's in the heads of others who see his character is another matter. Then again, I guess I'm one of those who don't give a rat's kitten about what others' characters are wearing beyond mild curiosity if a particular skin looks inviting, or whether someone looks at what I have on my characters.

Both of you are indeed providing (somewhat) constructive criticism. Both of you are poking holes in my suggestion, but not providing any better alternative.There's no alternative to provide, since we don't believe there is a problem. Again, the problem is personal to you.

I'm not 100% married to Gear Inspection as a 1-stop Fix-All for the issue I am describing, and I would be open to other suggestions. If you can think of another way to encourage prestige and also encourage skinning (since skins are mostly the only rewards end-game), then I would love to hear ideas.

Dude, the game is nicknamed FashionWars 2 for a reason, there's no need to encourage skinning, since everyone already does it extensively, and some times ridiculously.

Maybe there is a Fashion Score on your setup. Maybe there is a "score" you get for how rare an item is. Maybe other players can "up-vote" or "thumbs-up" you cosmetic appearance, thus incentivizing well planned aesthetics and also incentivizing

doing

the gear inspection.

Again, no incentives needed.

I really am trying to assist ANet by brainstorming ideas how to solve an issue they created where people may, or may not, care about new rewards because they already have a cosmetic look they like, or they are

very hesitant

to re-skin something that is more valuable with something that is a lot easier to get, even though they might want the look.

That will be a minority issue. True, my ranger does look pretty much the same since 2013-2014. But that's because i like the look, and don't need to change, but then, besides the ranger i have 8 other characters, and when i do change from bows to staff and druid, i do have separate healing power gear that is skin to match the druid theme.

Afterall, we are still human, and the desire to be prestigious is very strong in a multiplayer environment. Other games drive that prestige with power-creep and "bigger numbers" in combat; and since GW2 is not about

those

kinds of numbers, we need to think outside the box about a

different kind of "number"

that people can be proud about.

Like i said, there's a lot of "true" prestige items, like auras, legendary armor, etc.

If people lose pride in their characters or their gear or w/e, their engagement in the product will decrease. Less player engagement means less revenue. Less revenue means less new content for us ALL.

If they lose pride, then, that's their personal problem. Arena Net can't be around consoling every player and tweaking the game at each individual's whim. The game has been called fashionwars for 6 years now, and suddenly you decide there's a problem and people don't do fashion enough. That simply reveals either a total detachment from the game's reality and community, or simply lack of knowledge about what you're talking about.

While you may

personally

not care about this, trust that there are many who do. And it's in the best interest of us

all

to drive player engagement as high as possible, because we all benefit the larger and more engaged the community is.

No there isn't. Again, most people do transmute skins, the whole end-game of GW2 is about cosmetics, and people play it like that.

@Zoe.8310 said:

@"crepuscular.9047" said:Simple, it will lead to discrimination, just like WoW

The rest of your paragraph kinda contradicts this. Basically, you continue to say that there is already discrimination. There already is people asking for pings of gear or KP. If people want to discriminate, they are going to find a way.

What I am looking to foster is a feature that allows more personal pride and prestige in all the effort of things we have worked so hard to acquire over all these months ... years... etc.

Except it doesn't foster either pride or prestige. Not to mention, what's the prestige in using a store-bought skin? There's no such a thing as prestige in GW2, outside of owning some extremely hard to get or rare items (which i've mentioned before).

Okay, how about this for a crazy idea. Since it seems like I am in the minority that doesn't want to reskin a Legendary, what if they made transmuting Legendaries free? Just like stat swapping is free, and rune swapping is free, and sigil swapping is free.....

Thoughts?

Good compromise?

And, how would that make the legendary stand out more?Initially you said you didn't want to transmute legendaries, because transmuted it's harder to "show off", now you want to transmute it, if it's free... But it'll still be harder to show off... So your "problem" is still there. How would that even be a partial solution. You went from gear inspection (which is fine, just not for your reasons) to free transmutes please.Basically you're just coming of poorly, as someone who just wants to enforce something on others, regardless of what it is.

There's nothing to compromise, the system, within the parameters of the game, works perfectly fine, if there's something they did somewhat correctly was the cosmetics.

Udolpho.1209 · January 19, 2019

@Zoe.8310 said:I guess I am the minority in people that don't want to re-skin a Legendary because then ppl won't know it's a Legendary?

I hate the idea of gear inspection. However, fair point, you want to play fashion wars and don't want to loose the prestige of showing you are using a legendary.

How about if they just let footfalls happen if you're carrying that legendary, despite it's reskin. Unless you reskin it as another legendary I suppose. See footfalls? Legendary. Prestige. No everyone peeking at everyone's armor and judging them. I'd prefer that to gear inspection.

starhunter.6015 · January 19, 2019

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:
@zealex.9410 said:
@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Is there any reason to offer "gear inspect" rather than "wardrobe inspect?"
Fashion is only concerned with wardrobe choices; looking fabulous doesn't require knowing anything about the specs, only about which skins & colors.

One could argue it would make ppl's lives easier when they look something in game they like and could just inspect to see

Again, what is the argument for

gear inspection

over

wardrobe inspection

? Is there actually any

fashion

reason why someone needs to know what

gear

someone is using?

This ^^^^, Wardrobe over Gear inspection. No one needs to see the gear, just the skins.

ReaverKane.7598 · January 19, 2019

@starhunter.6015 said:
@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:
@zealex.9410 said:
@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Is there any reason to offer "gear inspect" rather than "wardrobe inspect?"
Fashion is only concerned with wardrobe choices; looking fabulous doesn't require knowing anything about the specs, only about which skins & colors.

One could argue it would make ppl's lives easier when they look something in game they like and could just inspect to see

Again, what is the argument for

gear inspection

over

wardrobe inspection

? Is there actually any

fashion

reason why someone needs to know what

gear

someone is using?

This ^^^^, Wardrobe over Gear inspection. No one needs to see the gear, just the skins.

Actually gear inspection can be useful in many circumstances, for example:

usually when helping a new guild member start a "end-game" build, one of the first things i want to know is what gear is he wearing, which usually ends up with the poor guy having to link everything in chat, when alternatively, i could inspect gear;
same thing for when your group is having a hard time on a boss, or whatever, we can inspect each other's gear to give some feedback on each other's builds;
for public raids with minimum requirements, a quick gear inspection might help those groups with making sure everyone is up to spec. Which, like it or not, is something that brings value to the game, if nothing else for the min-maxers, might be detrimental to the people that want to leech off of others, but then, in my opinion, we shouldn't be making the game less enjoyable for those that want to play it to it's utmost to protect those that want to play it the least;
for the fashion reasons, a gear check works just as well as a "wardrobe" check, showing the "transmuted" text on the weapon. And i'd posit that making a wardrobe check, instead of a full gear check, would actually just make people that actually want gear check, for these and other reasons, feel alienated. And since that's probably a considerable chunk of the player base (even if it's 1% that's already a lot of players), not a good idea.

Most other MMORPG's that i've played have this feature, and i've never felt it being detrimental to my game play, if anything it was always beneficial. Even in small things like me and my brother checking out each other's gear and finding out one of us had forgotten to swap one item or another when changing builds. Stuff like that.

@"Laila Lightness.8742" said:Idk it could make some ppl angry (probly hear things like gear shamming)

Man, the world is funny as hell nowadays. When "gear shamming" is something that people fear. If you have bad gear and someone points it out, that's a teachable moment, it means you're playing the game poorly. This isn't art class, there are wrong answers.

Illconceived Was Na.9781 · January 20, 2019

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:Actually gear inspection can be useful in many circumstances, for example:
usually when helping a new guild member start a "end-game" build, one of the first things i want to know is what gear is he wearing, which usually ends up with the poor guy having to link everything in chat, when alternatively, i could inspect gear;That seems a rare enough occurrence: 1-2 per account, until people learn how to build their own or borrow from the usual websites.
same thing for when your group is having a hard time on a boss, or whatever, we can inspect each other's gear to give some feedback on each other's builds;That sounds more likely. In my experience, it would only have helped a single time (someone wasn't using runes or sigils — yeah, we were surprised, too).
for public raids with minimum requirements, a quick gear inspection might help those groups with making sure everyone is up to spec. Which, like it or not, is something that brings value to the game, if nothing else for the min-maxers, might be detrimental to the people that want to leech off of others, but then, in my opinion, we shouldn't be making the game less enjoyable for those that want to play it to it's utmost to protect those that want to play it the least;I am sure it could be used for that purpose. I'm even sure it's going to get used for that. But I'm equally sure sure it would be misused more often.
for the fashion reasons, a gear check works just as well as a "wardrobe" check, showing the "transmuted" text on the weapon.Again, since the stated request of the OP is for fashion wars, the question is: why does the game need a gear check instead of a fashion check?
And i'd posit that making a wardrobe check, instead of a full gear check, would actually just make people that actually want gear check, for these and other reasons, feel alienated.Can you explain how that works? If it's literally just checking skins currently in use, how would people feel 'alienated'?
When "gear shamming" is something that people fear. If you have bad gear and someone points it out, that's a teachable moment, it means you're playing the game poorly. This isn't art class, there are wrong answers.There are also a larger variety of "right answers" than people tend to acknowledge. In any game, there's a herd mentality to push towards the most theoretically efficient builds. In this game (as well as others), that is counterproductive. Most teams don't play at the level of snowcrows, where phases are so quick that many mechanics (and damage sources) can be ignored, sometimes completely ignored.

The big advantage of DPS meters alone, over any sort of gear check: no one has to care about how anyone reaches sufficient DPS. Any build that allows people to deliver "good enough" damage will work. With a gear check, the attention would change.

Regardless, the stated reason for the original suggestion is to encourage people to transmute (either from borrowing or stealing ideas or wanting to be one of those from whom ideas are borrowed or stolen). To make that possible, only wardrobe inspection is necessary. Gear inspection, even as explained by others, serves an entirely different purpose.

Iris Ng.9845 · January 20, 2019

@crepuscular.9047 said:
@"Zoe.8310" said:What I am looking to foster is a feature that allows more personal pride and prestige in all the effort of things we have worked so hard to acquire over all these months ... years... etc.

that's why the shininess of legendary skins and cosmetic infusions are in the game, people will notice you are shinie miles away

learn from Deroir, legendaries give him freedom, not to show off his shinies

Lol, I just realize I have always pronounced his name wrong / de: roa/ as in Mirroir. Good to know.

My opinion about Gear Check is No, thank you. I'd like to keep my privacy intact. Could you be interested in my gears? Ask away, but it's my choice to tell you what my character is wearing. The thought of having someone stalking after my gears, (fashion wars or not), without my knowledge is just straight up creepy.

ReaverKane.7598 · January 20, 2019

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:
@"ReaverKane.7598" said:Actually gear inspection can be useful in many circumstances, for example:
usually when helping a new guild member start a "end-game" build, one of the first things i want to know is what gear is he wearing, which usually ends up with the poor guy having to link everything in chat, when alternatively, i could inspect gear;That seems a rare enough occurrence: 1-2 per account, until people learn how to build their own or borrow from the usual websites.
same thing for when your group is having a hard time on a boss, or whatever, we can inspect each other's gear to give some feedback on each other's builds;That sounds more likely. In my experience, it would only have helped a single time (someone wasn't using runes or sigils — yeah, we were surprised, too).
for public raids with minimum requirements, a quick gear inspection might help those groups with making sure everyone is up to spec. Which, like it or not, is something that brings value to the game, if nothing else for the min-maxers, might be detrimental to the people that want to leech off of others, but then, in my opinion, we shouldn't be making the game less enjoyable for those that want to play it to it's utmost to protect those that want to play it the least;I am sure it
could
be used for that purpose. I'm even sure it's going to get used for that. But I'm equally sure sure it would be misused more often.Define misused.
for the fashion reasons, a gear check works just as well as a "wardrobe" check, showing the "transmuted" text on the weapon.Again, since the stated request of the OP is for fashion wars, the question is: why does the game need a gear check instead of a fashion check?
And i'd posit that making a wardrobe check, instead of a full gear check, would actually just make people that actually want gear check, for these and other reasons, feel alienated.Can you explain how that works? If it's literally just checking skins currently in use, how would people feel 'alienated'?Same way that, for example, people like Brasil felt alienated when they realized that they weren't the target audience for Arena Net, because of the mount monetization.Same way that some PVE players feel alienated because of Raids.

If you have a part of the community asking for gear checks, because there are people that do so, and because there are people that will lie and try to leech of other people in raids and fractals. And then if Arena Net put up a partial gear check, that still obfuscates what those people asked, yeah, you can be sure a lot of them will feel that Arena net doesn't care for their enjoyment, and is tacitly approving of people leeching on group content.

When "gear shamming" is something that people fear. If you have bad gear and someone points it out, that's a teachable moment, it means you're playing the game poorly. This isn't art class, there
are
wrong answers.There are also a larger variety of "right answers" than people tend to acknowledge. In any game, there's a herd mentality to push towards the most theoretically efficient builds. In this game (as well as others), that is counterproductive. Most teams don't play at the level of snowcrows, where phases are so quick that many mechanics (and damage sources) can be ignored, sometimes completely ignored.

I'm not saying otherwise, in fact i encourage people to do their own builds, in fact, it's like you say, snowcrows builds requires a certain level of efficiency and tactics, that don't always translate. Which is why i tend to do the build "brainstorming" with guildmates more often than you seem to believe plausible. Which is a bit ironic that you dismiss that first, then appeal to it when it suits you.

The big advantage of DPS meters alone, over any sort of gear check: no one has to care about

how

anyone reaches sufficient DPS. Any build that allows people to deliver "good enough" damage will work. With a gear check, the attention would change.

Would it? Can you prove it would? Because i've been playing MMORPGs and been a guild master since 2005. And in about 80% games i've played had gear inspection, and still, everyone would use DPS meters when available.You're just speculating without any basis. Every other game out there has both of these things, and at least one of them is always integral to the game, and yet, there's as much toxicity here than in those games, if not more. Because in those games, the toxicity usually comes from loot sniping, and kill stealing, in here it's actually from the players lack of willingness to play the content as offered.

Regardless, the

stated reason

for the original suggestion is to encourage people to transmute (either from borrowing or stealing ideas or wanting to be one of those from whom ideas are borrowed or stolen). To make that possible, only wardrobe inspection is necessary. Gear inspection, even as explained by others, serves an entirely different purpose.

No, Gear inspection, as i explained, serves several purposes, including the one asked, which is actually the least necessary one, since it won't encourage transmuting. Might facilitate copying, but i doubt it would increase the frequency with which people transmute, since it's already pretty pervasive, but yeah, i speculate here.

Well, i'll return you your favourite reasoning to cap this all off... To create a full gear inspection, arena net, pretty much just needs to make a player's equipment tab public, it's a direct lift, they can either just create something that auto links the gear into a preview window, or something like that.To create a wardrobe only share, they'd have to add a second layer of filtering that shows only the skin from the weapon, instead of the weapon itself. To do so, requires extra computation to extricate the skin resource from the skin and show it separate.So how, if this was ever added, would you justify spending extra resources obfuscating the gear, when it's much simpler to just share it whole?

Illconceived Was Na.9781 · January 20, 2019

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:
Can you explain how that works? If it's literally just checking skins currently in use, how would people feel 'alienated'?Same way that, for example, people like Brasil felt alienated when they realized that they weren't the target audience for Arena Net, because of the mount monetization.Sorry, that's a reason that applies to absolutely anything that ANet does. It's not a positive reason for doing something, nor a sufficient negative
absent any specific context
.
There are also a larger variety of "right answers" than people tend to acknowledge. In any game, there's a herd mentality to push towards the most theoretically efficient builds. In this game (as well as others), that is counterproductive. Most teams don't play at the level of snowcrows, where phases are so quick that many mechanics (and damage sources) can be ignored, sometimes completely ignored.I'm not saying otherwise, in fact i encourage people to do their own builds, in fact, it's like you say, snowcrows builds requires a certain level of efficiency and tactics, that don't always translate. Which is why i tend to do the build "brainstorming" with guildmates more often than you seem to believe plausible. Which is a bit ironic that you dismiss that first, then appeal to it when it suits you.I didn't dismiss it; I just haven't seen it used often. I even acknowledged it can help some people. The point is: is that often enough to make it worth doing?
The big advantage of DPS meters alone, over any sort of gear check: no one has to care about
how
anyone reaches sufficient DPS. Any build that allows people to deliver "good enough" damage will work. With a gear check, the attention would change.Would it? Can you prove it would? Because i've been playing MMORPGs and been a guild master since 2005. And in about 80% games i've played had gear inspection, and still, everyone would use DPS meters when available.I probably explained poorly. What does guild inspection add when there are already DPS meters? DPS meters alone (which the game has, albeit 3rd party) allows people to measure the objectively important results, without caring about how people get there.Gear inspection, in contrast, is about how people get there, not about results.

You're just speculating without any basis. Every other game out there has both of these things, and at least one of them is always integral to the game, and yet, there's as much toxicity here than in those games, if not more. Because in those games, the toxicity usually comes from loot sniping, and kill stealing, in here it's actually from the players lack of willingness to play the content as offered.Again, I probably explained the idea poorly. Toxicity exists everywhere; it's a function of human nature, not of any specific tools. My point, again, is that it's not clear that adding gear inspection adds that much value.

That is, you've speculated that it's a good thing and I am saying I don't think it's a strong claim.

Regardless, the
stated reason
for the original suggestion is to encourage people to transmute (either from borrowing or stealing ideas or wanting to be one of those from whom ideas are borrowed or stolen). To make that possible, only wardrobe inspection is necessary. Gear inspection, even as explained by others, serves an entirely different purpose.
No, Gear inspection, as i explained, serves several purposes, including the one asked, which is actually the least necessary one, since it won't encourage transmuting. Might facilitate copying, but i doubt it would increase the frequency with which people transmute, since it's already pretty pervasive, but yeah, i speculate here.This thread, however, asks for help in fashion wars.

To create a wardrobe only share, they'd have to add a second layer of filtering that shows only the skin from the weapon, instead of the weapon itself. To do so, requires extra computation to extricate the skin resource from the skin and show it separate.The UI would be new regardless. The filtering already exists in the API.

So how, if this was ever added, would you justify spending extra resources obfuscating the gear, when it's much simpler to just share it whole?I don't think it's likely that it would take

extra

resources to do either; they are probably close to the same sized project. The bigger work is going to be the UI, not the ability to show skins (which exists already in the preview window -- that's probably a bigger road block, because that interface itself is wonky and barely suited for GW2 circa 2012).

Thelgar.7214 · January 20, 2019

We already have wardrobe and gear inspect, Type: "What are you wearing?" in chat. It's social. I don't see how someone has prestige based on having legendary or ascended stuff. I have 17 legendary weapons, 63 ascended weapons, 13 sets of ascended armor and a crapton of rings, amulets and trinkets. I don't feel prestigious. And neither grind or buying things give me a sense of accomplishment. On the other hand, I have 27 full Black Lion Collections and a good number of the rest along with a crapton of other skins. I don't feel engaged by this. I play WvW so I have over 350 transmutation charges at any given time despite regular re-skinning for holidays and when I get new skins I want to mess with or when I want to swap stuff between characters. ANet gets no money for these and gives them away so freely it doesn't seem they really care.

TL;DR: Whole idea seems like a big waste of time when you can just ask someone what they're wearing or if you really want people to know you have fancy stuff, link it in Map chat (or Team chat in WvW just for the amusement value of having 100 gazillion people typing (in Team chat) "Team chat is only for callouts!"

Astralporing.1957 · January 20, 2019

@ReaverKane.7598 said:
And i'd posit that making a wardrobe check, instead of a full gear check, would actually just make people that actually want gear check, for these and other reasons, feel alienated.Can you explain how that works? If it's literally just checking skins currently in use, how would people feel 'alienated'?Same way that, for example, people like Brasil felt alienated when they realized that they weren't the target audience for Arena Net, because of the mount monetization.Same way that some PVE players feel alienated because of Raids.Well, in that case, you forgot to mention that introducing a gear check would also make some people alienated. And i'm sure that it would alienate way more people than it would "un-alienate" And not making gear share of any kind (so, no partial solutions either) would not alienate anyone that already wouldn't feel this way. It's not like we would remove a feature from the game after all.

@ReaverKane.7598 said:If you have a part of the community asking for gear checks, because there are people that do so, and because there are people that will lie and try to leech of other people in raids and fractals. And then if Arena Net put up a partial gear check, that still obfuscates what those people asked, yeah, you can be sure a lot of them will feel that Arena net doesn't care for their enjoyment, and is tacitly approving of people leeching on group content.And we have a part of the community adamantly against gear checks of any kind. If Anet would put up gear check, it would alienate that group and make them feel Anet doesn't care about

their

feelings.

@ReaverKane.7598 said:To create a wardrobe only share, they'd have to add a second layer of filtering that shows only the skin from the weapon, instead of the weapon itself. To do so, requires extra computation to extricate the skin resource from the skin and show it separate.So how, if this was ever added, would you justify spending extra resources obfuscating the gear, when it's much simpler to just share it whole?Probably wouldn't. But then adding neither of those features would be even simpler, and create no negative backlash at all. So, better on both counts.

So, basically, by your own arguments, it's better for Anet to not introduce any gear checks (partial or not) at all. Which is something i fully agree with.

Aktium.9506 · January 20, 2019

@ReaverKane.7598 said:Legendary Weapons can be done in a couple minutes if you have most of the materials readyTook me like an 1+ hour of just sitting around waiting for the crafting station to finish spitting out 10 000 mithril ingots and 10 000 elder wood planks, just fyi.

ReaverKane.7598 · January 20, 2019

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:
@ReaverKane.7598 said:
Can you explain how that works? If it's literally just checking skins currently in use, how would people feel 'alienated'?Same way that, for example, people like Brasil felt alienated when they realized that they weren't the target audience for Arena Net, because of the mount monetization.Sorry, that's a reason that applies to absolutely anything that ANet does. It's not a positive reason for doing something, nor a sufficient negative
absent any specific context
.

Of course it applies to everything they add to the game, which is why it needs to be measured, and in this case adding a specific skin-only-check, would be a case where it would have been poorly measured and decided.Thing is, there is a substantial amount of people that want this, as they want DPS meters, and removing DPS meters or adding a half-baked gear check would serve only to aggravate people that want a full gear check. And you can go around with circular talks of whether it's significant or not, the only way to know is to do the wrong thing.

There are also a larger variety of "right answers" than people tend to acknowledge. In any game, there's a herd mentality to push towards the most theoretically efficient builds. In this game (as well as others), that is counterproductive. Most teams don't play at the level of snowcrows, where phases are so quick that many mechanics (and damage sources) can be ignored, sometimes completely ignored.I'm not saying otherwise, in fact i encourage people to do their own builds, in fact, it's like you say, snowcrows builds requires a certain level of efficiency and tactics, that don't always translate. Which is why i tend to do the build "brainstorming" with guildmates more often than you seem to believe plausible. Which is a bit ironic that you dismiss that first, then appeal to it when it suits you.I didn't dismiss it; I just haven't seen it used often. I even acknowledged it can help some people. The point is: is that often enough to make it worth doing?No, you first dismissed it, as not being used often. And again,
your personal experience
, is that, your personal experience. My personal experience is that, in GW2 helping a friend with his gear is more complicated than in any number of other games that allow me to inspect gear.

And yes, you were being disingenuous. First you dismiss that with:

1-2 per account, until people learn how to build their own or borrow from the usual websites.Not using a straw man fallacy or anything, right? But not happy with that, you then show that you can go both ways, by then appealing to build diversity when trying to prove that there is such a thing as "toxic" gear shamming. You can't first dismiss it by saying that everyone will just copy the builds from website, and then, when it's convenient for you, talk about how there's a lot of build diversity.
The big advantage of DPS meters alone, over any sort of gear check: no one has to care about
how
anyone reaches sufficient DPS. Any build that allows people to deliver "good enough" damage will work. With a gear check, the attention would change.Would it? Can you prove it would? Because i've been playing MMORPGs and been a guild master since 2005. And in about 80% games i've played had gear inspection, and still, everyone would use DPS meters when available.I probably explained poorly. What does guild inspection add when there are already DPS meters? DPS meters alone (which the game has, albeit 3rd party) allows people to measure the objectively important results, without caring about how people get there.Gear inspection, in contrast, is about how people get there, not about results.EXACTLY!See, here your rush to just stand your point makes you fail to see the broader picture.You're trying to imply toxicity and prejudice about gear, and i'm telling you, that outside people who will be negative by their own, this will enhance that experience towards being more inclusive.With a DPS meter, you can only see the end-result. As in, this guy has or hasn't sufficient DPS (there's a whole different debate of what that is, but experienced people will have a standard). What can you do then? You either kick him, or "DPS shame him" as some would call it.If you can inspect his gear, you can avoid kicking him, entirely, and work out the problems. If someone has the correct gear, but has low DPS, you can ask them about their rotation, and try to help him fix it. If he doesn't have the correct gear you can instruct him in what would be a better build for him.Having to ask a person to link his gear, and having to check it item by item, just makes the process so much more cumbersome, that it results in a complete lack of dialogue about this in most cases.

You're just speculating without any basis. Every other game out there has both of these things, and at least one of them is always integral to the game, and yet, there's as much toxicity here than in those games, if not more. Because in those games, the toxicity usually comes from loot sniping, and kill stealing, in here it's actually from the players lack of willingness to play the content as offered.Again, I probably explained the idea poorly. Toxicity exists everywhere; it's a function of human nature, not of any specific tools. My point, again, is that it's not clear that adding gear inspection adds that much value.

I've demonstrated the value of it. You dismissed it, and claimed it could be toxic, your words not mine.

That is, you've speculated that it's a good thing and I am saying I don't think it's a strong claim.No, apparently unlike you, and as i explained already, i've played a number of games where you can inspect gear, and never has it resulted in toxicity. If anything GW2 has more toxicity due to it's lack of a gear inspector, because it results in people requiring other kinds of checks, that are more arbitrary.

Regardless, the
stated reason
for the original suggestion is to encourage people to transmute (either from borrowing or stealing ideas or wanting to be one of those from whom ideas are borrowed or stolen). To make that possible, only wardrobe inspection is necessary. Gear inspection, even as explained by others, serves an entirely different purpose.
No, Gear inspection, as i explained, serves several purposes, including the one asked, which is actually the least necessary one, since it won't encourage transmuting. Might facilitate copying, but i doubt it would increase the frequency with which people transmute, since it's already pretty pervasive, but yeah, i speculate here.This thread, however, asks for help in fashion wars.

To create a wardrobe only share, they'd have to add a second layer of filtering that shows only the skin from the weapon, instead of the weapon itself. To do so, requires extra computation to extricate the skin resource from the skin and show it separate.The UI would be new regardless. The filtering already exists in the API.

So how, if this was ever added, would you justify spending extra resources obfuscating the gear, when it's much simpler to just share it whole?I don't think it's likely that it would take

extra

resources to do either; they are probably close to the same sized project. The bigger work is going to be the UI, not the ability to show skins (which exists already in the preview window -- that's probably a bigger road block, because that interface itself is wonky and barely suited for GW2 circa 2012).

1) The UI already exists... They just need to show the exact same character skin we see when we press H, minus the number stats. No need for major UI overhauls.2) The game holds state for the gear equipped, the skin is a property of that gear item. To show just the skin, they'd need to have a function that would have to just extract that property, associate it with it's skin, and display it in the UI. While for full gear inspection they just need to either query the full item ID, which since you can link to the chat is readily available, and display it on a UI, or simply grab the equipment table from a player and display it. Regardless of your opinion, adding obfuscation always requires more work.

@Aktium.9506 said:

@ReaverKane.7598 said:Legendary Weapons can be done in a couple minutes if you have most of the materials readyTook me like an 1+ hour of just sitting around waiting for the crafting station to finish spitting out 10 000 mithril ingots and 10 000 elder wood planks, just fyi.

I guess in your hurry to reply you failed to read the very last words of the sentence you quoted.

@Astralporing.1957 said:
@ReaverKane.7598 said:
And i'd posit that making a wardrobe check, instead of a full gear check, would actually just make people that actually want gear check, for these and other reasons, feel alienated.Can you explain how that works? If it's literally just checking skins currently in use, how would people feel 'alienated'?Same way that, for example, people like Brasil felt alienated when they realized that they weren't the target audience for Arena Net, because of the mount monetization.Same way that some PVE players feel alienated because of Raids.Well, in that case, you forgot to mention that introducing a gear check would also make some people alienated. And i'm sure that it would alienate way more people than it would "un-alienate" And not making gear share of any kind (so, no partial solutions either) would not alienate anyone that already wouldn't feel this way. It's not like we would remove a feature from the game after all.

I never said, to add or remove gear check, or partial, i just said that adding a partial one would be a bad move. And while i disagree with your assessment that it would alienate more people by adding a full one than otherwise, i'll ask you a question:Who do you think you should protect more? People that care for their builds, and spend time building up their characters, or those that are afraid they'll get "gear shammed" because they tend to not worry about that and just ride on other people's shoulders? Who do you think will have a stronger reaction, or who do you think invests more time in the game, hence being more likely to be a source of profit?

@ReaverKane.7598 said:If you have a part of the community asking for gear checks, because there are people that do so, and because there are people that will lie and try to leech of other people in raids and fractals. And then if Arena Net put up a partial gear check, that still obfuscates what those people asked, yeah, you can be sure a lot of them will feel that Arena net doesn't care for their enjoyment, and is tacitly approving of people leeching on group content.And we have a part of the community adamantly against gear checks of any kind. If Anet would put up gear check, it would alienate that group and make them feel Anet doesn't care about
their
feelings.Again, my question is, why should that group be protected? Evidently their reasoning is simply so they can hide their lack of commitment to the higher tier content. Just like they don't want DPS meters, because that makes it obvious how badly they're performing.There's only 2 scenarios possible here:Either you have a bad build, and you'll get called out for having a bad build, get kicked, and you will be unable to do the content, but that's your fault.Or you have a good build, but run into a guy that can't recognize it. You get called out erroneously, and either get kicked, or get the chance to turn the tables on the actual noob in the group. Either way, you probably don't want to play with that guy anyhow.

Basically you're either in the wrong, and need to get right, or you're right, and avoid being around people that are wrong.

@ReaverKane.7598 said:To create a wardrobe only share, they'd have to add a second layer of filtering that shows only the skin from the weapon, instead of the weapon itself. To do so, requires extra computation to extricate the skin resource from the skin and show it separate.So how, if this was ever added, would you justify spending extra resources obfuscating the gear, when it's much simpler to just share it whole?Probably wouldn't. But then adding neither of those features would be even simpler, and create no negative backlash at all. So, better on both counts.

So, basically, by your own arguments, it's better for Anet to not introduce any gear checks (partial or not) at all. Which is something i fully agree with.That's debatable, but yeah, sure. While i'd prefer a gear check, because, again, 14 years playing MMORPGs and never had a problem with gear check, in fact GW2's community is the first time i've ever had people crying about gear checking and DPS meters (which just shows you how many people do like to ride other people's coat tails here).

Hugheszie.6291 · January 20, 2019

@ReaverKane.7598 said:
@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:
@ReaverKane.7598 said:
Can you explain how that works? If it's literally just checking skins currently in use, how would people feel 'alienated'?Same way that, for example, people like Brasil felt alienated when they realized that they weren't the target audience for Arena Net, because of the mount monetization.Sorry, that's a reason that applies to absolutely anything that ANet does. It's not a positive reason for doing something, nor a sufficient negative
absent any specific context
.

Of course it applies to everything they add to the game, which is why it needs to be measured, and in this case adding a specific skin-only-check, would be a case where it would have been poorly measured and decided.Thing is, there is a substantial amount of people that want this, as they want DPS meters, and removing DPS meters or adding a half-baked gear check would serve only to aggravate people that want a full gear check. And you can go around with circular talks of whether it's significant or not, the only way to know is to do the wrong thing.

There are also a larger variety of "right answers" than people tend to acknowledge. In any game, there's a herd mentality to push towards the most theoretically efficient builds. In this game (as well as others), that is counterproductive. Most teams don't play at the level of snowcrows, where phases are so quick that many mechanics (and damage sources) can be ignored, sometimes completely ignored.I'm not saying otherwise, in fact i encourage people to do their own builds, in fact, it's like you say, snowcrows builds requires a certain level of efficiency and tactics, that don't always translate. Which is why i tend to do the build "brainstorming" with guildmates more often than you seem to believe plausible. Which is a bit ironic that you dismiss that first, then appeal to it when it suits you.I didn't dismiss it; I just haven't seen it used often. I even acknowledged it can help some people. The point is: is that often enough to make it worth doing?No, you first dismissed it, as not being used often. And again,
your personal experience
, is that, your personal experience. My personal experience is that, in GW2 helping a friend with his gear is more complicated than in any number of other games that allow me to inspect gear.

And yes, you were being disingenuous. First you dismiss that with:

1-2 per account, until people learn how to build their own or
borrow from the usual websites
.Not using a straw man fallacy or anything, right? But not happy with that, you then show that you can go both ways, by then appealing to build diversity when trying to prove that there is such a thing as "toxic" gear shamming. You can't first dismiss it by saying that everyone will just copy the builds from website, and then, when it's convenient for you, talk about how there's a lot of build diversity.
The big advantage of DPS meters alone, over any sort of gear check: no one has to care about
how
anyone reaches sufficient DPS. Any build that allows people to deliver "good enough" damage will work. With a gear check, the attention would change.Would it? Can you prove it would? Because i've been playing MMORPGs and been a guild master since 2005. And in about 80% games i've played had gear inspection, and still, everyone would use DPS meters when available.I probably explained poorly. What does guild inspection add when there are already DPS meters? DPS meters alone (which the game has, albeit 3rd party) allows people to measure the objectively important results, without caring about how people get there.Gear inspection, in contrast, is about how people get there, not about results.EXACTLY!See, here your rush to just stand your point makes you fail to see the broader picture.You're trying to imply toxicity and prejudice about gear, and i'm telling you, that outside people who will be negative by their own, this will enhance that experience towards being more inclusive.With a DPS meter, you can only see the end-result. As in, this guy has or hasn't sufficient DPS (there's a whole different debate of what that is, but experienced people will have a standard). What can you do then? You either kick him, or "DPS shame him" as some would call it.If you can inspect his gear, you can avoid kicking him, entirely, and work out the problems. If someone has the correct gear, but has low DPS, you can ask them about their rotation, and try to help him fix it. If he doesn't have the correct gear you can instruct him in what would be a better build for him.Having to ask a person to link his gear, and having to check it item by item, just makes the process so much more cumbersome, that it results in a complete lack of dialogue about this in most cases.

You're just speculating without any basis. Every other game out there has both of these things, and at least one of them is always integral to the game, and yet, there's as much toxicity here than in those games, if not more. Because in those games, the toxicity usually comes from loot sniping, and kill stealing, in here it's actually from the players lack of willingness to play the content as offered.Again, I probably explained the idea poorly. Toxicity exists everywhere; it's a function of human nature, not of any specific tools. My point, again, is that it's not clear that adding gear inspection adds that much value.

I've demonstrated the value of it. You dismissed it, and claimed it could be toxic, your words not mine.

That is, you've speculated that it's a good thing and I am saying I don't think it's a strong claim.No, apparently unlike you, and as i explained already, i've played a number of games where you can inspect gear, and never has it resulted in toxicity. If anything GW2 has more toxicity due to it's lack of a gear inspector, because it results in people requiring other kinds of checks, that are more arbitrary.

Regardless, the
stated reason
for the original suggestion is to encourage people to transmute (either from borrowing or stealing ideas or wanting to be one of those from whom ideas are borrowed or stolen). To make that possible, only wardrobe inspection is necessary. Gear inspection, even as explained by others, serves an entirely different purpose.
No, Gear inspection, as i explained, serves several purposes, including the one asked, which is actually the least necessary one, since it won't encourage transmuting. Might facilitate copying, but i doubt it would increase the frequency with which people transmute, since it's already pretty pervasive, but yeah, i speculate here.This thread, however, asks for help in fashion wars.

To create a wardrobe only share, they'd have to add a second layer of filtering that shows only the skin from the weapon, instead of the weapon itself. To do so, requires extra computation to extricate the skin resource from the skin and show it separate.The UI would be new regardless. The filtering already exists in the API.

So how, if this was ever added, would you justify spending extra resources obfuscating the gear, when it's much simpler to just share it whole?I don't think it's likely that it would take

extra

resources to do either; they are probably close to the same sized project. The bigger work is going to be the UI, not the ability to show skins (which exists already in the preview window -- that's probably a bigger road block, because that interface itself is wonky and barely suited for GW2 circa 2012).

1) The UI already exists... They just need to show the exact same character skin we see when we press H, minus the number stats. No need for major UI overhauls.2) The game holds state for the gear equipped, the skin is a property of that gear item. To show just the skin, they'd need to have a function that would have to just extract that property, associate it with it's skin, and display it in the UI. While for full gear inspection they just need to either query the full item ID, which since you can link to the chat is readily available, and display it on a UI, or simply grab the equipment table from a player and display it. Regardless of your opinion, adding obfuscation always requires more work.

@Aktium.9506 said:

@ReaverKane.7598 said:Legendary Weapons can be done in a couple minutes if you have most of the materials readyTook me like an 1+ hour of just sitting around waiting for the crafting station to finish spitting out 10 000 mithril ingots and 10 000 elder wood planks, just fyi.

I guess in your hurry to reply you failed to read the very last words of the sentence you quoted.

@Astralporing.1957 said:
@ReaverKane.7598 said:
And i'd posit that making a wardrobe check, instead of a full gear check, would actually just make people that actually want gear check, for these and other reasons, feel alienated.Can you explain how that works? If it's literally just checking skins currently in use, how would people feel 'alienated'?Same way that, for example, people like Brasil felt alienated when they realized that they weren't the target audience for Arena Net, because of the mount monetization.Same way that some PVE players feel alienated because of Raids.Well, in that case, you forgot to mention that introducing a gear check would also make some people alienated. And i'm sure that it would alienate way more people than it would "un-alienate" And not making gear share of any kind (so, no partial solutions either) would not alienate anyone that already wouldn't feel this way. It's not like we would remove a feature from the game after all.

I never said, to add or remove gear check, or partial, i just said that adding a partial one would be a bad move. And while i disagree with your assessment that it would alienate more people by adding a full one than otherwise, i'll ask you a question:Who do you think you should protect more? People that care for their builds, and spend time building up their characters, or those that are afraid they'll get "gear shammed" because they tend to not worry about that and just ride on other people's shoulders? Who do you think will have a stronger reaction, or who do you think invests more time in the game, hence being more likely to be a source of profit?

@ReaverKane.7598 said:If you have a part of the community asking for gear checks, because there are people that do so, and because there are people that will lie and try to leech of other people in raids and fractals. And then if Arena Net put up a partial gear check, that still obfuscates what those people asked, yeah, you can be sure a lot of them will feel that Arena net doesn't care for their enjoyment, and is tacitly approving of people leeching on group content.And we have a part of the community adamantly against gear checks of any kind. If Anet would put up gear check, it would alienate that group and make them feel Anet doesn't care about
their
feelings.Again, my question is, why should that group be protected? Evidently their reasoning is simply so they can hide their lack of commitment to the higher tier content. Just like they don't want DPS meters, because that makes it obvious how badly they're performing.There's only 2 scenarios possible here:Either you have a bad build, and you'll get called out for having a bad build, get kicked, and you will be unable to do the content, but that's your fault.Or you have a good build, but run into a guy that can't recognize it. You get called out erroneously, and either get kicked, or get the chance to turn the tables on the actual noob in the group. Either way, you probably don't want to play with that guy anyhow.

Basically you're either in the wrong, and need to get right, or you're right, and avoid being around people that are wrong.

@ReaverKane.7598 said:To create a wardrobe only share, they'd have to add a second layer of filtering that shows only the skin from the weapon, instead of the weapon itself. To do so, requires extra computation to extricate the skin resource from the skin and show it separate.So how, if this was ever added, would you justify spending extra resources obfuscating the gear, when it's much simpler to just share it whole?Probably wouldn't. But then adding neither of those features would be even simpler, and create no negative backlash at all. So, better on both counts.

So, basically, by your own arguments, it's better for Anet to not introduce any gear checks (partial or not) at all. Which is something i fully agree with.That's debatable, but yeah, sure. While i'd prefer a gear check, because, again, 14 years playing MMORPGs and never had a problem with gear check, in fact GW2's community is the first time i've ever had people crying about gear checking and DPS meters (which just shows you how many people do like to ride other people's coat tails here).

I too, have played MMOS for well over a decade, be honest, gear check creates toxic environments, often.

ReaverKane.7598 · January 20, 2019

@Hugheszie.6291 said:
@ReaverKane.7598 said:
@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:
@ReaverKane.7598 said:
Can you explain how that works? If it's literally just checking skins currently in use, how would people feel 'alienated'?Same way that, for example, people like Brasil felt alienated when they realized that they weren't the target audience for Arena Net, because of the mount monetization.Sorry, that's a reason that applies to absolutely anything that ANet does. It's not a positive reason for doing something, nor a sufficient negative
absent any specific context
.

Of course it applies to everything they add to the game, which is why it needs to be measured, and in this case adding a specific skin-only-check, would be a case where it would have been poorly measured and decided.Thing is, there is a substantial amount of people that want this, as they want DPS meters, and removing DPS meters or adding a half-baked gear check would serve only to aggravate people that want a full gear check. And you can go around with circular talks of whether it's significant or not, the only way to know is to do the wrong thing.

There are also a larger variety of "right answers" than people tend to acknowledge. In any game, there's a herd mentality to push towards the most theoretically efficient builds. In this game (as well as others), that is counterproductive. Most teams don't play at the level of snowcrows, where phases are so quick that many mechanics (and damage sources) can be ignored, sometimes completely ignored.I'm not saying otherwise, in fact i encourage people to do their own builds, in fact, it's like you say, snowcrows builds requires a certain level of efficiency and tactics, that don't always translate. Which is why i tend to do the build "brainstorming" with guildmates more often than you seem to believe plausible. Which is a bit ironic that you dismiss that first, then appeal to it when it suits you.I didn't dismiss it; I just haven't seen it used often. I even acknowledged it can help some people. The point is: is that often enough to make it worth doing?No, you first dismissed it, as not being used often. And again,
your personal experience
, is that, your personal experience. My personal experience is that, in GW2 helping a friend with his gear is more complicated than in any number of other games that allow me to inspect gear.

And yes, you were being disingenuous. First you dismiss that with:

1-2 per account, until people learn how to build their own or
borrow from the usual websites
.Not using a straw man fallacy or anything, right? But not happy with that, you then show that you can go both ways, by then appealing to build diversity when trying to prove that there is such a thing as "toxic" gear shamming. You can't first dismiss it by saying that everyone will just copy the builds from website, and then, when it's convenient for you, talk about how there's a lot of build diversity.
The big advantage of DPS meters alone, over any sort of gear check: no one has to care about
how
anyone reaches sufficient DPS. Any build that allows people to deliver "good enough" damage will work. With a gear check, the attention would change.Would it? Can you prove it would? Because i've been playing MMORPGs and been a guild master since 2005. And in about 80% games i've played had gear inspection, and still, everyone would use DPS meters when available.I probably explained poorly. What does guild inspection add when there are already DPS meters? DPS meters alone (which the game has, albeit 3rd party) allows people to measure the objectively important results, without caring about how people get there.Gear inspection, in contrast, is about how people get there, not about results.EXACTLY!See, here your rush to just stand your point makes you fail to see the broader picture.You're trying to imply toxicity and prejudice about gear, and i'm telling you, that outside people who will be negative by their own, this will enhance that experience towards being more inclusive.With a DPS meter, you can only see the end-result. As in, this guy has or hasn't sufficient DPS (there's a whole different debate of what that is, but experienced people will have a standard). What can you do then? You either kick him, or "DPS shame him" as some would call it.If you can inspect his gear, you can avoid kicking him, entirely, and work out the problems. If someone has the correct gear, but has low DPS, you can ask them about their rotation, and try to help him fix it. If he doesn't have the correct gear you can instruct him in what would be a better build for him.Having to ask a person to link his gear, and having to check it item by item, just makes the process so much more cumbersome, that it results in a complete lack of dialogue about this in most cases.

You're just speculating without any basis. Every other game out there has both of these things, and at least one of them is always integral to the game, and yet, there's as much toxicity here than in those games, if not more. Because in those games, the toxicity usually comes from loot sniping, and kill stealing, in here it's actually from the players lack of willingness to play the content as offered.Again, I probably explained the idea poorly. Toxicity exists everywhere; it's a function of human nature, not of any specific tools. My point, again, is that it's not clear that adding gear inspection adds that much value.

I've demonstrated the value of it. You dismissed it, and claimed it could be toxic, your words not mine.

That is, you've speculated that it's a good thing and I am saying I don't think it's a strong claim.No, apparently unlike you, and as i explained already, i've played a number of games where you can inspect gear, and never has it resulted in toxicity. If anything GW2 has more toxicity due to it's lack of a gear inspector, because it results in people requiring other kinds of checks, that are more arbitrary.

Regardless, the
stated reason
for the original suggestion is to encourage people to transmute (either from borrowing or stealing ideas or wanting to be one of those from whom ideas are borrowed or stolen). To make that possible, only wardrobe inspection is necessary. Gear inspection, even as explained by others, serves an entirely different purpose.
No, Gear inspection, as i explained, serves several purposes, including the one asked, which is actually the least necessary one, since it won't encourage transmuting. Might facilitate copying, but i doubt it would increase the frequency with which people transmute, since it's already pretty pervasive, but yeah, i speculate here.This thread, however, asks for help in fashion wars.

To create a wardrobe only share, they'd have to add a second layer of filtering that shows only the skin from the weapon, instead of the weapon itself. To do so, requires extra computation to extricate the skin resource from the skin and show it separate.The UI would be new regardless. The filtering already exists in the API.

So how, if this was ever added, would you justify spending extra resources obfuscating the gear, when it's much simpler to just share it whole?I don't think it's likely that it would take

extra

resources to do either; they are probably close to the same sized project. The bigger work is going to be the UI, not the ability to show skins (which exists already in the preview window -- that's probably a bigger road block, because that interface itself is wonky and barely suited for GW2 circa 2012).

1) The UI already exists... They just need to show the exact same character skin we see when we press H, minus the number stats. No need for major UI overhauls.2) The game holds state for the gear equipped, the skin is a property of that gear item. To show just the skin, they'd need to have a function that would have to just extract that property, associate it with it's skin, and display it in the UI. While for full gear inspection they just need to either query the full item ID, which since you can link to the chat is readily available, and display it on a UI, or simply grab the equipment table from a player and display it. Regardless of your opinion, adding obfuscation always requires more work.

@Aktium.9506 said:

@ReaverKane.7598 said:Legendary Weapons can be done in a couple minutes if you have most of the materials readyTook me like an 1+ hour of just sitting around waiting for the crafting station to finish spitting out 10 000 mithril ingots and 10 000 elder wood planks, just fyi.

I guess in your hurry to reply you failed to read the very last words of the sentence you quoted.

@Astralporing.1957 said:
@ReaverKane.7598 said:
And i'd posit that making a wardrobe check, instead of a full gear check, would actually just make people that actually want gear check, for these and other reasons, feel alienated.Can you explain how that works? If it's literally just checking skins currently in use, how would people feel 'alienated'?Same way that, for example, people like Brasil felt alienated when they realized that they weren't the target audience for Arena Net, because of the mount monetization.Same way that some PVE players feel alienated because of Raids.Well, in that case, you forgot to mention that introducing a gear check would also make some people alienated. And i'm sure that it would alienate way more people than it would "un-alienate" And not making gear share of any kind (so, no partial solutions either) would not alienate anyone that already wouldn't feel this way. It's not like we would remove a feature from the game after all.

I never said, to add or remove gear check, or partial, i just said that adding a partial one would be a bad move. And while i disagree with your assessment that it would alienate more people by adding a full one than otherwise, i'll ask you a question:Who do you think you should protect more? People that care for their builds, and spend time building up their characters, or those that are afraid they'll get "gear shammed" because they tend to not worry about that and just ride on other people's shoulders? Who do you think will have a stronger reaction, or who do you think invests more time in the game, hence being more likely to be a source of profit?

@ReaverKane.7598 said:If you have a part of the community asking for gear checks, because there are people that do so, and because there are people that will lie and try to leech of other people in raids and fractals. And then if Arena Net put up a partial gear check, that still obfuscates what those people asked, yeah, you can be sure a lot of them will feel that Arena net doesn't care for their enjoyment, and is tacitly approving of people leeching on group content.And we have a part of the community adamantly against gear checks of any kind. If Anet would put up gear check, it would alienate that group and make them feel Anet doesn't care about
their
feelings.Again, my question is, why should that group be protected? Evidently their reasoning is simply so they can hide their lack of commitment to the higher tier content. Just like they don't want DPS meters, because that makes it obvious how badly they're performing.There's only 2 scenarios possible here:Either you have a bad build, and you'll get called out for having a bad build, get kicked, and you will be unable to do the content, but that's your fault.Or you have a good build, but run into a guy that can't recognize it. You get called out erroneously, and either get kicked, or get the chance to turn the tables on the actual noob in the group. Either way, you probably don't want to play with that guy anyhow.

Basically you're either in the wrong, and need to get right, or you're right, and avoid being around people that are wrong.

@ReaverKane.7598 said:To create a wardrobe only share, they'd have to add a second layer of filtering that shows only the skin from the weapon, instead of the weapon itself. To do so, requires extra computation to extricate the skin resource from the skin and show it separate.So how, if this was ever added, would you justify spending extra resources obfuscating the gear, when it's much simpler to just share it whole?Probably wouldn't. But then adding neither of those features would be even simpler, and create no negative backlash at all. So, better on both counts.

So, basically, by your own arguments, it's better for Anet to not introduce any gear checks (partial or not) at all. Which is something i fully agree with.That's debatable, but yeah, sure. While i'd prefer a gear check, because, again, 14 years playing MMORPGs and never had a problem with gear check, in fact GW2's community is the first time i've ever had people crying about gear checking and DPS meters (which just shows you how many people do like to ride other people's coat tails here).

I too, have played MMOS for well over a decade, be honest, gear check creates toxic environments, often.

Cite examples please? I haven't, and having had most of the times 100+ players on my guilds, and not ever having people complain about it, i'm kind of baffled at how you can say this.

kharmin.7683 · January 20, 2019

@ReaverKane.7598 said:Cite examples please? I haven't, and having had most of the times 100+ players on my guilds, and not ever having people complain about it, i'm kind of baffled at how you can say this.Wasn't it with dungeons in GW2, prior to ARC, where this exact thing was happening?

Astralporing.1957 · January 21, 2019

@ReaverKane.7598 said:
@"Astralporing.1957" said:Well, in that case, you forgot to mention that introducing a gear check would also make some people alienated. And i'm sure that it would alienate way more people than it would "un-alienate" And not making gear share of any kind (so, no partial solutions either) would not alienate anyone that already wouldn't feel this way. It's not like we would remove a feature from the game after all.

I never said, to add or remove gear check, or partial, i just said that adding a partial one would be a bad move. And while i disagree with your assessment that it would alienate more people by adding a full one than otherwise, i'll ask you a question:Who do you think you should protect more? People that care for their builds, and spend time building up their characters, or those that are afraid they'll get "gear shammed" because they tend to not worry about that and just ride on other people's shoulders?Wrong question, because it assumes way too many things that aren't true. For example, i'm generally up with the meta on all characters on which it's relevant (with the exception of some made specifically for OW, where it simply doesn't matter). Adding gear checks

would

make me feel alienated.

But back to your original question - who Anet should protect more? The group whose dissatisfaction would have bigger impact on their purse, of course.

Who do you think will have a stronger reaction, or who do you think invests more time in the game, hence being more likely to be a source of profit?The bigger group? The group that will feel more negatively about this? (which, by the way, probably wouldn't be the hardcore group, because they already have no gear checks so they will hardly feel any more alienated than they are now).
Again, my question is, why should that group be protected? Evidently their reasoning is simply so they can hide their lack of commitment to the higher tier content.Bullkitten. There's a lot of people that do have commitment to the higher tier content but still feel strongly against gear checks.
Just like they don't want DPS meters, because that makes it obvious how badly they're performing.There's only partial coverage here.
There's only 2 scenarios possible here:Either you have a bad build, and you'll get called out for having a bad build, get kicked, and you will be unable to do the content, but that's your fault.Or you have a good build, but run into a guy that can't recognize it. You get called out erroneously, and either get kicked, or get the chance to turn the tables on the actual noob in the group. Either way, you probably don't want to play with that guy anyhow.Or you have a good build, do a good dps, but unfortunately your build is tweaked to your personal preferences and isn't on Snowcrows list. You'd probably outdps most pugs, but you will never get the chance to show it, because due to the gear check you will get kicked right away.(hint: many of the builds that are in meta now or were part of the meta at some point in the past before they got nerfed were created this way, and might never have had a chance to become popular if everyone'd have been gearchecking and kicking them when they were still not commonly known)
So, basically, by your own arguments, it's better for Anet to not introduce any gear checks (partial or not) at all. Which is something i fully agree with.That's debatable, but yeah, sure. While i'd prefer a gear check, because, again, 14 years playing MMORPGs and never had a problem with gear check, in fact GW2's community is the first time i've ever had people crying about gear checking and DPS meters (which just shows you how many people do like to ride other people's coat tails here)....you really weren't paying attention in all those MMORPGs, were you(Hint: discussion about gear checkers and dps meters is as old as the tools themselves, and here in GW2 we actually have it still quite peaceful, compared to other places)

joneirikb.7506 · January 21, 2019

A gear check will never fly with ANet, though there might be an argument for a "Skin Check", to see what skins people are wearing. There is already an interesting discussion on that topic, and I don't really have anything interesting to add.
Regarding "Fashion Score", that is too subjective. Though I'd welcome the ability to down-vote with -1 to players I don't like the look of, if it also "disables" them on my screen, at which point I'd also start begging for the option to automatically down vote every player on my screen, since it will be easier and faster than doing it manually one every map ;) Yeah, I don't like most players "fashion sense" in this game, sue me.
Regarding: Legendaries with free transmutations. This is exactly what I've suggested in the past. Considering Legendaries in general are vanity items, it makes more sense with vanity bonuses than stat swapping (which is used how much in pve? Most people seemingly put them in zerk or something and leave it!) Still can't figure out why stat swapping is a thing for Legendaries.

@Turin.6921 said:I do not see the reason for this...Asking to ping skins is one of the few things in which player interaction is incentivized in hubs. There are already too few interaction incentives in open world. I would prefer not to remove the few last ones left. Especially that i really do not see merit in the argument since if you do reskin you legendary armor there is no way for the other person know that you are wearing a legendary either so the prestige effect will be the same. If you are wearing an interesting skin and people asks for a ping , they will see your are wearing a legendary already.

A very good point.

Though I find it sad that this is one of the few ways in which many people interacts with others in an MMO :'( makes me miss the days/games where you had to team up just to survive in normal map zones.

Just want to say I enjoy this discussion, lots of good points from both sides. I think this isn't a topic about right or wrong, but about perspectives.

Add Gear Inspect => More Transmutation => More Revenue $$$

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