Wardrobe skins limited by weight, why ?

[Memoranda.9386]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Smoosh.2718 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Smoosh.2718 said:

Idk, I am a little dubious when it comes to things like this, as companies will bend the truth about something to not do it. Look at the request for dyeable backpacks, 'not possible!' Which was said many times... low and behold it was possible all along.I thought it wasn't possible with the older ones?

They have shown it is possible, just they don't want to do it to non gemstore back items.

Hmm... I thought that they started enabling it on newer backpacks but not the previous ones because of the way that the older ones were coded. Do you have a quote or proof somewhere that older ones can be dyed and Anet just refuses to set them that way?

This is exactly the reason. Old backpacks are made using the original coding, which was described as being more like a bundle item you would get from a skill, think Flamethrower bundle; it was made "whole" and couldn't be dyed.

New backpacks are made more like regular skins, but had to be integrated with the coding to be able to have dye channels.

[kharmin.7683]

Thanks. I thought I had remembered correctly, but as I'm old I tend to forget things.

[Faccina.5091]

Old backpacks are made using the original coding, which was described as being more like a bundle item you would get from a skill, think Flamethrower bundle; it was made "whole" and couldn't be dyed.lolwut this have no sense at alloh gawd i wanna read the code now

[Shiyo.3578]

I want to be able to wear light armor on any class, it's by far the best looking and it's unfair.

[notebene.3190]

Knowing all that, I wouldn't mind the ability to change my base weight class. Maybe I'm a guardian and would like to wear light weight looking armor, I could change my weight class (if I took all my armor off), and then it only let me put armor back on if it was re-skinned using the light weight class. If I changed my mind down the road, I could repeat the process. Take everything off, change my weight class back to heavy, put armor back on once I re-skin it all to heavy.

I know the original request might have been to be able to mix-n-match, but it occurred to me this might be something interesting in lieu of that.

[Rakan Buuyon.8576]

@Smoosh.2718 said:

@"coso.9173" said:If you ask me, it was really stupid from the beginning to have different armor weights have different seams and skeleton. They shot themselves in the foot with that.

Idk, I am a little dubious when it comes to things like this, as companies will bend the truth about something to not do it. Look at the request for dyeable backpacks, 'not possible!' Which was said many times... low and behold it was possible all along.

I'd also love to see this said extent of armour clipping as well if it was done. If there are tiny clippings, so what? you have hundreds of combinations now... what truely is horrible to see is those glowball infusion monkies.

If someone has screenshots of two armour weights mixed together I'd love to see it. Makes me wonder if a dataminer has rigged the armours on a skin to preview them mixed.

I mean it's a program. Everything is "possible". It's possible that GW2 could run on any engine. It's possible that each map could be 50 times larger than it is now. It's possible that GW2 could have the most advanced raytracing ever seen in a game.

When devs say something isn't "possible", what they mean is it's not something that can just be done without extra work. Old back pieces aren't made in a way that let's them be dyed. Their current engine is capable of doing it, their artists have they ability to make it happen, but it would require going back and remaking the assets required for it happen. It's not just some checkbox they enable somewhere that allows it to happen, it takes development time to make it happen.

Most of the other armor weights would probably line up fine with other ones. The problem is not all of them would. Part of the issue is the limitation was a design choice. They didn't want warriors running around in robes, they didn't want necros running around in plated armor. They went back on this decision with outfits, but it was after they designed armors knowing this limitation was already in place.

There's also the possibility that the current system is just hard coded in a way that armor classes are that armor class. You can transmute any heavy armor as another, cause the game just accepts they are both heavy armors and makes a new armor piece with stats it's accepts. It might be set up in a way where there would be a conflict if it was a different armor weight. For example, it tries to make a light armor that has the stats of heavy armor, and it just wasn't designed in a way to let this happen. Now I'm not sure this is how it works, only a guess, but would explain why armor rewards that unlock all three weight classes give you three items usually. This would explain why they don't just let it happen, clipping and seam issues be damned. It would require fixing the backend, which would put it in the same category as letting all back pieces be dyed. Development time they would rather put somewhere else.

Could it be done? Absolutely. Everything you can think of can be done. All armors could be something you could transmute. All back pieces could be dyed. A new engine could be made, DX12, raytracing, big seamless world, any feature at all. Like I said, it's a program, literally nothing is impossible. The problem comes down to how easily things could be implemented, and how much they value putting the development time into making it happen. For right now, they just don't value putting the time into making it happen as worth while. There's new LWSs being made, a new expansion being made, I doubt they want to take people off these things to "fix" something that's worked the way from the start, that really wouldn't make anything better if they changed it. Maybe someday they will have the development time to spare to make it happen, but it's not going to be today.

[Vrath.1754]

@Memoranda.9386 said:

@"Smoosh.2718" said:I'll keep backing these requests till they happen.

Doing this will open up thousands of combinations, and you'll be able to finally make your character look the way you wanted it to.If the (probably going to get a mod warning for this) 'BuT tHeY aRe DiFfErEnT sKeLeToNs' gets used, why not just copy and paste the skin onto the other skeleton weight?

No effort needs to be made in designing the armour.. its already made, no effort needs to be made in creating the armour, it's already done.This would be a great addition to the Gw2 game, allowing players to make their character look the way they want them to, armour skins on the store may now be bought by the Light, Medium or Heavy only players.

If you read even some of the replies above, you would have noted that the armor pieces don't align along the same "seams" per each weight class, and saying "they don't want to do it" is discounting the amount of work. You can't "copy and paste", as devs have explained: each item is unique and would need to be remade to fit either a.) A completely new mesh/rig and seam lines, or .b) remade to fit on one of the current mesh/rigs. Regardless of the option chosen, some skins would need to be extended or have portions cut. That's going to take the art/skin team off of new projects and push them into refurbing old skins instead.

The cost/benefit of doing that has never favored making it a reality. It was a decision made in early production (among others) that some ANet devs have said wish could've/would've been done differently. Unfortunately now ANet is stuck with the current system until (and gets more unlikely as time goes on) that the system underlying all skins can be changed.

We were told dyable back items would never be a reality, but now we have them. So never say never, it's just extremely unlikely.

Also, I remember previewing different armor class skins together. Some looked "okay", but others were pretty bad and created weird artifacts.

I would definitely love to have the flexibility, but right now it's not in the cards. Making whiny, accusatory statements certainly isn't going to help your case.

Yep a lot of arm chair devs here believe x, y and z easy peeze lemon squeezy. However the devs or the PMs know the opportunity cost and deemd it not worth the work.Similar to why we dont get new armor skins and instead get Outfits. I'd love more armor skins but they've decided it's not worth the effort for the return. That is what almost everything comes down to in development not that it cant be done , its just not worth it.

[Linken.6345]

@Vrath.1754 said:

@Memoranda.9386 said:

@"Smoosh.2718" said:I'll keep backing these requests till they happen.

Doing this will open up thousands of combinations, and you'll be able to finally make your character look the way you wanted it to.If the (probably going to get a mod warning for this) 'BuT tHeY aRe DiFfErEnT sKeLeToNs' gets used, why not just copy and paste the skin onto the other skeleton weight?

No effort needs to be made in designing the armour.. its already made, no effort needs to be made in creating the armour, it's already done.This would be a great addition to the Gw2 game, allowing players to make their character look the way they want them to, armour skins on the store may now be bought by the Light, Medium or Heavy only players.

If you read even some of the replies above, you would have noted that the armor pieces don't align along the same "seams" per each weight class, and saying "they don't want to do it" is discounting the amount of work. You can't "copy and paste", as devs have explained: each item is unique and would need to be remade to fit either a.) A completely new mesh/rig and seam lines, or .b) remade to fit on one of the current mesh/rigs. Regardless of the option chosen, some skins would need to be extended or have portions cut. That's going to take the art/skin team off of new projects and push them into refurbing old skins instead.

The cost/benefit of doing that has never favored making it a reality. It was a decision made in early production (among others) that some ANet devs have said wish could've/would've been done differently. Unfortunately now ANet is stuck with the current system until (and gets more unlikely as time goes on) that the system underlying all skins can be changed.

We were told dyable back items would never be a reality, but now we have them. So never say never, it's just extremely unlikely.

Also, I remember previewing different armor class skins together. Some looked "okay", but others were pretty bad and created weird artifacts.

I would definitely love to have the flexibility, but right now it's not in the cards. Making whiny, accusatory statements certainly isn't going to help your case.

Yep a lot of arm chair devs here believe x, y and z easy peeze lemon squeezy. However the devs or the PMs know the opportunity cost and deemd it not worth the work.Similar to why we dont get new armor skins and instead get Outfits. I'd love more armor skins but they've decided it's not worth the effort for the return. That is what almost everything comes down to in development not that it cant be done , its just not worth it.

Nah the community dident want armor skins in the gemstore they wanted it in game, so we got what we asked for and anet stoped making skins as regularly.

[mercury ranique.2170]

It has to do with design specs for each weightclass. An armorskin is a drawing around a skeleton. This should mix and match. By using weightclasses you can set some standards (e.g. where the line is between skirt and shirt) and you limit the pool of Armor you need to test with.

You can argue the decisions made are bad ones, but changing things now would mean a lot of redesign.

[sasya neko.1985]

the funny part about this argument is that it's already possible, they just disabled the possibility to do so.before they added the wardrobe or even removed town clothing the perview window allowed this kind of mixing, after the big overhaul (destroying some stuff previously possible) this was stopped.

there is no specific skeleton or rigging, it's simply the class each skin is assigned, it is rather easy to make them for all 3 weight classes but it just takes time, assigning all pieces to a class but this time dublicate them to allow other weight classes to use the 3D model.

[Faccina.5091]

heavy boots with heavy legs theres few mix that does the same thing even if the weight is the samei also checked the metal shirt and its the same model in all 3 the weight and that work with any helmet/shoulder/legs (at least with a human female)the same metal shirt model is used for other chests with different textures

imho they should let us decide which one to wear even if looks weirdits not like someone will stop to play this game just because he see some weird looking people

[Smoosh.2718]

@Linken.6345 said:Nah the community dident want armor skins in the gemstore they wanted it in game, so we got what we asked for and anet stoped making skins as regularly.

I really dont remember being asked if i wanted to see outfits or armour skins.

That being said it should be the players choice on what to wear. The arguement of the classes must be identified by their armour has gone out the window with outfits. The arguement of too much clipping has also gone out of the window due to the current armours clipping (so what? you find armours that work together, with all the weights you will find armour that works together!)

sorudo.9054 has stated that the ability to preview mixed weights was disabled, which shows it is totally possible for this to be done.

Who wouldnt want 3 times the number of skins to pick from? You'd have people finally able to have the 'barbarian' look they've wanted or the armoured mage.As someone who runs a heavy class with the invisible stompers, your options for legs are shot, 3 out of the 90+ skins work.... you open that up to every skin now you have many to pick from that will work.

I say get it done, let the player pick what works and what doesnt.

[Taril.8619]

It all comes down to time and thus money.

Their initial decision to separate each armour weight into separate "Frames" for whatever reason (Some say things like "To allow players to recognize silhouettes" but there are many skins in the base game that are ambiguous at best, not to mention that they literally have/had a setting to allow for players to see generic gear in PvP/WvW which are the only places where player silhouettes matter) is causing an impedement to their ability to justify putting resources towards universally usable armour pieces.

Since to convert them from 3 armour weights, into a singular one, it would still take a lot of work (Even if bypassing some of the work by converting them onto the same frame as one of the existing armour weights bypassing the need to work on ~1/3rd of the armour in the game)

With actually, one of the biggest impedements, being those armour pieces that "Look the same" across each armour weight, as those present an entirely different issue, whereby while they "Look the same" relative to other gear options and as an entire set, each weight class has different cut off points, meaning that turning the 3 weight variants into a single one could end up with previously functioning armour skins now looking wierd and out of place because they went with the "Wrong" weight class variant of the item for the new universal item (Which I suppose they could get around by simply keeping the 3 different variants available... )

Of course, the longer it takes before they work on something like this, the more items will be in the game and thus the larger the workload it becomes.

Meaning that realistically, we can only really expect maybe something like being able to pick a weight class to use for skins but still being locked to only able to utilize skins from 1 weight class at a time. Which would be nice (Med armour skins look garbage... I much prefer some Light/Heavy sets), but even then, unlikely given its tenuous profitablility...

[Zee.1294]

Why you guys stile talking about the armor?.....IF i understand correctly this tread is about the skins not the armor itself ..... Anet can easily make all types of armor to be used for SKINS without changing the actual game play.... but like i said before they dont have interest of doing that..... no profit!......Aldo there maybe a way to make everyone happy......Make a coupon for lats say 300 gems that allow you to used 1 time end pick any skin type for transmute .....just like total make over coupon ......just saying!

[Tails.9372]

@notebene.3190 said:I wouldn't mind the ability to change my base weight class.It would require some work to set up but technically speaking adding an option to change the weight class for skins should be possible and would IMO also be worth the effort.

@Taril.8619 said:unlikely given its tenuous profitablility...I'd question whether or not that is actually the case, they only need to set up the system one and it would effectively triple the amount of skins available to the players. Right now when they introduce new armor sets many people only get the one for the waight class they actually play while with such a system all 3 sets would become viable options meaning they would get significantly more value out of the effort they invested to create these (and future) sets.

[Astralporing.1957]

@coso.9173 said:If you ask me, it was really stupid from the beginning to have different armor weights have different seams and skeleton. They shot themselves in the foot with that.There were a lot of decisions about armor that they probably now regret making. Some of them have caused them even more problems than weight category separation. Unfortunately, those are all things that aren't easy to fix now, so they will probably remain till the game shuts down.

@Smoosh.2718 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Smoosh.2718 said:

Idk, I am a little dubious when it comes to things like this, as companies will bend the truth about something to not do it. Look at the request for dyeable backpacks, 'not possible!' Which was said many times... low and behold it was possible all along.I thought it wasn't possible with the older ones?

They have shown it is possible, just they don't want to do it to non gemstore back items.That's the same. It was never flat out impossible. It just required way too much effort to rework all old backpacks. And it still holds true. They just finally gave up on ever trying, and decided to limit themselves to it being an option only for future stuff.

[Tails.9372]

@"Astralporing.1957" said:those are all things that aren't easy to fix nowWhile it might not be the easiest thing in the world to fix it's not exactly the hardest thing to fix either (it's definitely not in the "too much effort to be realistic" category). They just have to link every piece of armor to 3 different skins, one from each weight class e.g.:

The Visor (the basic ascended heavy armor helm) would have 3 skins liked to it:

• for the light armor skin: "Apprentice Band"
• for the medium armor skin: "Rawhide Mask"
• for the heavy armor skin: "Illustrious Visor"

Then all the player has left to do is to select the weight class for the displayed set of skins (with the default being whatever the weight class of the player actually is) and transmute if nessesary. /done

This might take some effort to set up but it's not like as if they would have to redo any skins and once it's done you get a lot more value out of the existing (and future) armor skins so I don't see any logical reason as for why it wouldn't be worth the effort (but then again decision making @ A-Net seems to often times work in mysterious ways).

[Faccina.5091]

It just required way too much effort to rework all old backpackssomething like convert the old texture in b/w then use it as alpha channel over the dye color layer ?

[Smoosh.2718]

The one thing i find really hard with heavy skins, is the skins that work well with the invisible stompers.... This would fix the problem by opening the doors to other skins.

Two quick easy examples:

Let the players decide what works!

Anothing thing to add, if 'clipping' was a reason not to do it... Big Nose Ted... and his butt, serious clipping there, so clipping can not be used as an excuse.

[Adamus.1287]

I am an absolute advocate for these changes BUT wanting inter weight transmuting is sabotaging us getting ANYTHING. I think inter weight is too much of an ask BUT as pointed out by someone above, the ability to just check a box for what weight we want to use and ALL 6 pieces have to be that same weight or the game says "cannot equip this item as armor weight does not match" and boom, done, easy.

I'd even take this one step further and say just get rid of "armor stats" entirely. The actual "weight" of armor effects nothing except how much base defence the equipment gives and this difference means NOTHING to actual meta game play! I mean for gods sake for a tank meta is a LIGHT CLASS!!!!!! Just ditch the defence stat, round it to the medium stat and add it back to our characters base stats, done.

[Zzik.5873]

@Faccina.5091 said:

@"Blocki.4931" said:Each weight class has their own "skeleton", meaning they're specifically made to work with that type of armor. Outfits are different, because they are made using their own weightclass technically.

If with skeleton you mean the 3d mesh that already exist as you can see in the armor preview window.If you mean that the stats are somehow hardcoded, i dont think that because you can change the appaerance of a leggendary with the skin of a lvl 1 armor and that don't affect the stats.

Skeleton and mesh are 2 really different thing, skeleton are what animation file use and what proc are bount too, mesh is just the 3D visual nothing more.

[robertthebard.8150]

@coso.9173 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:

@coso.9173 said:I wish they would at least make all new armor wearable by all weights from now on

I believe that the original intent was to enable players to differentiate opponents by the types of armor they were wearing. Outfits, however, defeat that intent. Now, though, I would suspect it to be too difficult to change the armor to be allowed across all professions without completely re-writing code. To me, that is not something that they can justify spending resources to do.

If you ask me, it was really stupid from the beginning to have different armor weights have different seams and skeleton. They shot themselves in the foot with that.

So the alternative is to make all the armors look the same, and then there's no need for skins anyway. There are reasons that armor categories look different: heavy armor is more "restricting", medium armor allows for better mobility, etc. What's "really stupid" is complaining that they made armors look differently in a thread wanting to be able to mix and match the way these armors look.

[Obtena.7952]

@Tails.9372 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:those are all things that aren't easy to fix nowWhile it might not be the easiest thing in the world to fix it's not exactly the hardest thing to fix either (it's definitely not in the "too much effort to be realistic" category). They just have to link every piece of armor to 3 different skins, one from each weight class e.g.:

The Visor (the basic ascended heavy armor helm) would have 3 skins liked to it:

• for the light armor skin: "Apprentice Band"
• for the medium armor skin: "Rawhide Mask"
• for the heavy armor skin: "Illustrious Visor"

Then all the player has left to do is to select the weight class for the displayed set of skins (with the default being whatever the weight class of the player actually is) and transmute if nessesary. /done

This might take some effort to set up but it's not like as if they would have to redo any skins and once it's done you get a lot more value out of the existing (and future) armor skins so I don't see any logical reason as for why it wouldn't be worth the effort (but then again decision making @ A-Net seems to often times work in mysterious ways).

Hard or easy, the question is if there is value in doing it.

[Timbersword.9014]

The problem largely exists between the leg and torso armors. Gloves, boots, and shoulders could probably be made weightless with little need to touch them beyond a few check boxes.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Tails.9372 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:those are all things that aren't easy to fix nowWhile it might not be the easiest thing in the world to fix it's not exactly the hardest thing to fix either (it's definitely not in the "too much effort to be realistic" category). They just have to link every piece of armor to 3 different skins, one from each weight class e.g.:

The Visor (the basic ascended heavy armor helm) would have 3 skins liked to it:

• for the light armor skin: "Apprentice Band"
• for the medium armor skin: "Rawhide Mask"
• for the heavy armor skin: "Illustrious Visor"

Then all the player has left to do is to select the weight class for the displayed set of skins (with the default being whatever the weight class of the player actually is) and transmute if nessesary. /done

This might take some effort to set up but

it's not like as if they would have to redo any skins

and once it's done you get a lot more value out of the existing (and future) armor skins so I don't see any logical reason as for why it wouldn't be worth the effort (but then again decision making @ A-Net seems to often times work in mysterious ways).

But that's exactly what they'd have to do for the old skins. Since the linking points are different for each weight class, they would basically need to do the remaining 2 versions for each skin, based on the original version but adjusted for those changed linking points. Same with new ones - they would basically have to do triple the work for the part that is the most work-intensive (from what we've heard) - checking whether the pieces align well with pieces from other armor sets. And remember that it's the part that is already so problematic that it causes Anet to release new armor sets only very rarely.