Free For All

[Ossyrana.1637]

This may sound silly, being about fashion wars, but... what would you say if armor didn’t have weight? That no matter what weight class you are, you could wear any armor in the game. And the different stats the armor would normally have would then just be a part of your character with or without the armor. Or, can keep it the way it is but just let us skin it any way we want. It makes it so hard when designing a character, because I have to keep in mind if I can make them look good no matter if I want to play that class or even that class as a particular race or gender. But if it were free for all, no matter your character imbued weight (just like a lot of other games where each race has their own stat differences and special benefits and cons), it’s be so much easier to outfit our characters and not worry about it when deciding what class would best fit their personality or culture. And on top of this, I wish any class could use any weapon - ‘cause many times there’s a very particular skin I deeply desire on a character but can’t because of their class. And sometimes there’s a unique animation of a weapon that I wish could be an imbuing upgrade we could apply to any weapon or trinket... like the flower growing footsteps of Kudzu. That would fit my character so well, but I’d rather use my Wings of Dwayna because to me it is the most beautiful weapon in the game. I wish that (even if it wasn’t as easy as buying an utility from the trade post) if I at most got Kudzu, then I could at least skin it and still have the footprint animation since I earned it.

I also wish there were more toggles in character creation to manually pull and tug on the body to determine the figure and features of individual parts of their form... like eradicating breasts on sylvari... choosing the intensity of rock hard abs without having to have a certain shape... broadening the shoulders and lengthening the torso etc... this however is probably impossible to change at this point though. Way too hard.

But, I wonder if it isn’t too late to fix some of the outfits that are way too glowy. The ones that won’t let me dye them near dark enough to the point I want them to be and just have to avoid using those. I also would really love to be able to dye weapons so I can have black metal when I desire as well. But either way, it won’t help if the dye channel isn’t dark enough for the material’s programming. I feel like they’re intended to be shiny metal but are just too smooth with too much aura & brightness like when we see amateur CGI taken to the extreme in films that they justnlook unnaturally radiant. But I know for a fact Anet is capable of realistic metal because there’s other weapons and armor in the game that prove they can execute a superb approach to the item’s texture and reflective adjusting light affects it requires as you turn it around so it reacts to the light source and doesn’t stick onto the object.

Stuff to ponder for we artists.

[Khalisto.5780]

they could even make money out of it

Something like a transmutation stone that can bind different armor weights

[Randulf.7614]

The free for all on armour weights has been suggested for most the game's lifespan. Not sure if there has ever been an official response to it mind you - I'm sure someone with all the dev quotes handily bookmarked will confirm if one exists

[Seera.5916]

@Randulf.7614 said:The free for all on armour weights has been suggested for most the game's lifespan. Not sure if there has ever been an official response to it mind you - I'm sure someone with all the dev quotes handily bookmarked will confirm if one exists

There has. I am unfortunately not one of those who bookmarks dev quotes so I can't post one and many of those quotes may be on the since deleted original forums as this has come up many times before.

The short answer is that it is not possible to do while maintaining current quality levels.

The long answer is each armor weight class has a different mesh. The meshes are designed to work well with the other meshes of its weight class. So heavy shoulders look good on heavy chest armors. The meshes do not work well with meshes of other weight classes. A light shoulder piece may sink into a heavy cheat armor. There would be a LOT of clipping issues beyond what's already present. Especially at places where meshes meet. Like chest pieces and legs.

There have been too many armor pieces created using the current system for there to be a removal of the armor weight classes.

[Rasimir.6239]

The reason we can't do this is primarily technical. The characters we see on screen are technically speaking cut into different body parts like head, upper body, legs etc. . If you change your body armor skin, you don't just put a new coat on, but technically replace the upper body of your character model with that of the new skin.

Unfortunately the game was designed in a way that the different armor weights have different cut-off points. If you take for example a character in medium armor and replace the body armor with one of light armor type you will find that the light jacket skin doesn't reach as far down, thus leaving a gap between the light jacket and the medium trousers. And it's not just a piece of bare skin (like you would see if you were wearing a shirt that's too short in real life), but a hole in the character body on screen that you can even see through. It's basically like having three different brands of lego that have slightly different block sizes, so while you can construct similarly-looking buildings out of each brand's blocks, you can't mix the blocks without all kinds of wonky looking stuff happening.

To mix and match armor skins of different weights they would have to rebuild the whole system from the ground up, including adjusting all of the skins already in game, which takes a ton of time both on the technical side as well as on the armor design side. As much as people (including both players and developers) would love to be able to mix and match armor weights, it's just too time and resource consuming to be viable.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

You can find the Dev quotes in many of the other threads on this subject (use Forum Search feature).

[sephiroth.4217]

@Seera.5916 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:The free for all on armour weights has been suggested for most the game's lifespan. Not sure if there has ever been an official response to it mind you - I'm sure someone with all the dev quotes handily bookmarked will confirm if one exists

There has. I am unfortunately not one of those who bookmarks dev quotes so I can't post one and many of those quotes may be on the since deleted original forums as this has come up many times before.

The short answer is that it is not possible to do while maintaining current quality levels.

The long answer is each armor weight class has a different mesh. The meshes are designed to work well with the other meshes of its weight class. So heavy shoulders look good on heavy chest armors. The meshes do not work well with meshes of other weight classes. A light shoulder piece may sink into a heavy cheat armor. There would be a LOT of clipping issues beyond what's already present. Especially at places where meshes meet. Like chest pieces and legs.

There have been too many armor pieces created using the current system for there to be a removal of the armor weight classes.

So I wouldn't equip the ones that ruin my look, simple ?

[Randulf.7614]

Thank you to seera and rasimir for the useful explanation and not just telling us to go search for it ourselves ?

[b k.1648]

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@Seera.5916 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:The free for all on armour weights has been suggested for most the game's lifespan. Not sure if there has ever been an official response to it mind you - I'm sure someone with all the dev quotes handily bookmarked will confirm if one exists

There has. I am unfortunately not one of those who bookmarks dev quotes so I can't post one and many of those quotes may be on the since deleted original forums as this has come up many times before.

The short answer is that it is not possible to do while maintaining current quality levels.

The long answer is each armor weight class has a different mesh. The meshes are designed to work well with the other meshes of its weight class. So heavy shoulders look good on heavy chest armors. The meshes do not work well with meshes of other weight classes. A light shoulder piece may sink into a heavy cheat armor. There would be a LOT of clipping issues beyond what's already present. Especially at places where meshes meet. Like chest pieces and legs.

There have been too many armor pieces created using the current system for there to be a removal of the armor weight classes.

So I wouldn't equip the ones that ruin my look, simple ?

That solves the problem for you, and I wish it were that simple. Unfortunately, for every one who's willing to work with a caveat emptor system, there'll be so many more people who'll spam ANet with support tickets because their heavy chestpiece doesn't play nice with their light leggings.

[derd.6413]

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@Seera.5916 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:The free for all on armour weights has been suggested for most the game's lifespan. Not sure if there has ever been an official response to it mind you - I'm sure someone with all the dev quotes handily bookmarked will confirm if one exists

There has. I am unfortunately not one of those who bookmarks dev quotes so I can't post one and many of those quotes may be on the since deleted original forums as this has come up many times before.

The short answer is that it is not possible to do while maintaining current quality levels.

The long answer is each armor weight class has a different mesh. The meshes are designed to work well with the other meshes of its weight class. So heavy shoulders look good on heavy chest armors. The meshes do not work well with meshes of other weight classes. A light shoulder piece may sink into a heavy cheat armor. There would be a LOT of clipping issues beyond what's already present. Especially at places where meshes meet. Like chest pieces and legs.

There have been too many armor pieces created using the current system for there to be a removal of the armor weight classes.

So I wouldn't equip the ones that ruin my look, simple ?

i think most ppl will agree that that attitude is the exception rather then the rule

[Danikat.8537]

@derd.6413 said:

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@Seera.5916 said:

@"Randulf.7614" said:The free for all on armour weights has been suggested for most the game's lifespan. Not sure if there has ever been an official response to it mind you - I'm sure someone with all the dev quotes handily bookmarked will confirm if one exists

There has. I am unfortunately not one of those who bookmarks dev quotes so I can't post one and many of those quotes may be on the since deleted original forums as this has come up many times before.

The short answer is that it is not possible to do while maintaining current quality levels.

The long answer is each armor weight class has a different mesh. The meshes are designed to work well with the other meshes of its weight class. So heavy shoulders look good on heavy chest armors. The meshes do not work well with meshes of other weight classes. A light shoulder piece may sink into a heavy cheat armor. There would be a LOT of clipping issues beyond what's already present. Especially at places where meshes meet. Like chest pieces and legs.

There have been too many armor pieces created using the current system for there to be a removal of the armor weight classes.

So I wouldn't equip the ones that ruin my look, simple ?

i think most ppl will agree that that attitude is the exception rather then the rule

Even people who will do this won't necessarily accept it quietly. Elder Scrolls Online lets you mix and match all 3 armour weights (that's been in the game since the begining so they were all designed to fit together) and my small, skinny light armoured character can't wear the majority of shoulder skins because they float so far above her shoulders it looks absurd (far worse than floating pieces in GW2). I understand that's because they have to fit over the thicker, lumpier heavy armour skins too (and bigger characters - the scaling is sometimes a bit off) and it's part of the price paid for that level of customisation, along with less overall variation in the shape of armour skins. But I still raise it as an issue every so often because it's still annoying to have to spend my time identifying the sub-set of skins which are even worth considering and then choosing from that small selection instead of the full range.

Whereas in GW2 I can often find shoulders which look like they're part of the chest piece, or chest and leg armour which looks like it's all 1 piece even if it's not from the same set. (Which I think is how they're intended - the "butt capes" or skirts on a lot of light and heavy armour would actually be the bottom of a tunic if it was real clothing.)

I'm not sure which I prefer, both restrict the range of skins I can use together, just for different reasons.

[Ossyrana.1637]

@Danikat.8537 said:Even people who will do this won't necessarily accept it quietly. Elder Scrolls Online lets you mix and match all 3 armour weights (that's been in the game since the begining so they were all designed to fit together) and my small, skinny light armoured character can't wear the majority of shoulder skins because they float so far above her shoulders it looks absurd (far worse than floating pieces in GW2). I understand that's because they have to fit over the thicker, lumpier heavy armour skins too (and bigger characters - the scaling is sometimes a bit off) and it's part of the price paid for that level of customisation, along with less overall variation in the shape of armour skins. But I still raise it as an issue every so often because it's still annoying to have to spend my time identifying the sub-set of skins which are even worth considering and then choosing from that small selection instead of the full range.

For sure! Yeah, it makes me wonder if the only other way besides reworking the whole thing ground up, is if they copied the binary codes for light armor, placed it in heavy and medium wardrobes for their own copy, and then tweak the numbers to be their personal variant that can fit with the rest of that set’s possibilities (and honestly may need multiple copies linked to each armor to avoid the clipping we still get while playing around with one weight). Then do the same for the heavy and medium in the light and each other’s.