Wardrobe skins limited by weight, why ?

[Faccina.5091]

There is no real reason to limit the skins to their weight.

• Theres outfits that looks heavy and light that can be used by any class
• Theres some armor pieces that looks the same in any weight
• Theres already the skins as you can see in the preview window, theres no need to make a new one.

[Blocki.4931]

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.

[Omega.6801]

Years ago ANet told us the story of "Each weight class should have its own silhouette by which you could identify another class/weight in PvP"...then they made outfits and threw that concept out of the window. That's why skins are locked to weight and also why it doesn't make sense that it is like that.

[Faccina.5091]

@"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.

[Linken.6345]

@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.

No by skeleton they mean that for example light chest wont go well with heavy/medium pants/gloves since they arent cut of at the same point on the characters.

[Danikat.8537]

It's to do with the underlying models (I guess that's the 3d mesh, but I'm not sure of the terminology). The most noticeable example is the line between the chest and leg pieces - it's in a different place for each armour weight and aside from ones which are designed to show some skin in between pretty consistent within an armour weight. Apparently there's other differences too, but I'm not sure of the specifics.

The end result is that if they allowed us to mix and match armour skins across different weights it would lead to weird graphical errors - clipping, holes in the model and other weirdness which makes it look a mess. I'm sure some people will say players wouldn't care or would accept it's unavoidable and stick to using skins which look ok together but considering how quick players are to complain when a new skin clips or has other problems I think a significant number would not consider that acceptable. (Plus Anet has their own standards for what is acceptable in their game.)

It would be nice if they could allow us to combine them, but I suspect it would require redesigning a lot of them, including visible changes like altering the bottom of all the chest pieces so they all cut off at the same point, which then has an additional risk in disappointing players who liked the original version.

[Faccina.5091]

@Linken.6345 said:No by skeleton they mean that for example light chest wont go well with heavy/medium pants/gloves since they arent cut of at the same point on the characters.

Theres some armor pieces that are the same in all 3 weight and they work well anyway...And theres some in the same weight that looks weird (theres a medium leggin with a piece that goes ontop of the chest for example).And if you look carefully you can see that some are the same 3dmeshes with different textures.

[AgentMoore.9453]

@Danikat.8537 said:The end result is that if they allowed us to mix and match armour skins across different weights it would lead to weird graphical errors - clipping, holes in the model and other weirdness which makes it look a mess. I'm sure some people will say players wouldn't care or would accept it's unavoidable and stick to using skins which look ok together.

I'll happily be one of those people, because there are already items that do this even when worn as intended. Off the top of my head, I can point out the sailor's beanie which puts a hole in either side of my Sylvari's head when worn or my Human's nose which sticks out through all aquabreathers and nearly all masks. Graphical problems are part and parcel to the game and some of these issues have been around since launch. We've made our peace.

Besides, if they really cared about visuals, they'd have done something about armor scaling, light spam, and particle effects by now.

After this many years, fashion is one of the biggest reasons I still play, so if one of the big holdups is that 'well, it'd be a lot of effort and money to remove armor weights or break outfits into gear', my answer is 'well, I'd pay a lot of money for more fashion liberty, even with some weirdness'. Take outfits, specifically. At the moment, it's less work for them than armor sets (supposedly), but I also skip buying most of them because they look terrible and can't be customized. Is it better to continue on this way or put in the work and suddenly have me buying all of the outfits because I can find at least one piece I like on every single one?

People have made the desire for more customization clear for literal years from armor weights to outfits to faces and hairs - I hope it's something that arrives with the next expansion. Better late than never.

[Doggie.3184]

@"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.

When the game was released armor preview allowed any weight combination and most of it worked perfectly fine so that's no excuse really. They just don't feel like doing it. Elder Scrolls Online beat them to it and long surpassed what used to be the best reskin system and it just makes me disappointed in Anet.

They don't even try to make universal skins for the ones that literally aren't capable of clipping, which is basically any chest without a buttcape attached to it which is pretty much any non-medium chest since heavy/light attach it to the legs. The Metal Legion TShirt and Xmas Sweater are some of the only universal chest pieces. Non chest pieces have even less clipping potential. There's no excuse outside of they just don't care and/or have some dumb silhouette ideal no single player on earth cares about (and outfits totally render it irrelevant) that Paul Ella mentioned on stream (gone from Anet now, I was hoping it'd lead to some fashion improvements with his departure), which is one of the only times Anet ever spoke up about their fashion critisim.

[Smoosh.2718]

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.

[Memoranda.9386]

@"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.

[Faccina.5091]

each item is uniquenot all, some are the same mesh with different texture, others are the same with things attached or modified

[Zee.1294]

@"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.

lol Realy ?...This is all made up story... the real reason is....outfits!To unlock all skins will take 5 min ,.... there is so many possible combinations .... but if they do that outfits will become absolute ... no profit .....so yeah forget about it!

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Ohhh what would i give to let my warrior use medium armor....

A man can dream.

[Randulf.7614]

@Zee.1294 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.

lol Realy ?...This is all made up story... the real reason is....outfits!To unlock all skins will take 5 min ,.... there is so many possible combinations .... but if they do that outfits will become absolute ... no profit .....so yeah forget about it!

Except this was the stated reason before outfits were a thing.

This isn’t a 5 min unlock thing. If it was, it would have been done from launch, long before outfits were even a concept

[Zee.1294]

Dont you know that everything is plan ahead ? Outfits was a thing in 2012.... you just dint know it . Gw2 is free to play. Outfits end skins is there biggest revenue !...

[coso.9173]

Of course it can be done. All can be done, it's their own game. It's only that they feel the amount of work isn't justified by the revenue they would get from it.I wish they would at least make all new armor wearable by all weights from now on

[kharmin.7683]

@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.

[coso.9173]

@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.

[kharmin.7683]

@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.

Hindsight is 20/20 for sure. I think that they were trying to set themselves apart from other MMOs with their strategy. Opinions differ on whether or not that was a good idea from the start.

[Smoosh.2718]

@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.

[kharmin.7683]

@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?

[Smoosh.2718]

@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.

[kharmin.7683]

@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?

[Geoff Fey.1035]

Twilight Oasis and a number of PoF characters use various pieces from all 3 weights (in addition to the NPC only outfits/armour/town clothes), so it's possible, but in those cases it's a specific circumstance so they could probably just mash it all together and not have ot deal with people breakingn it