Guild Wars 2

Hero Panel Overhaul (Item Sets / Skins, Miniatures, Dyes,)

I think the Hero Panel needs an overhaul to allow you keep track of all your minatures, item sets / skins, and dyes.

1. Item Sets / Skins

This game is mostly driven by cosmetics, so I think the way item sets and skins are dealt with need to be changed. Transmutation stones seemed good, but is an unfinished idea that needs to be expanded on. Destroying an item in the process of transmuting, is not a good option, which is why I think the system should be completely reworked.

How it would work:

In the Hero Panel there should be a Skin Bank or Item Set Tab that stores all your armor, weapon, and other cosmetic skins. Here you can view all your skins for items such as: greatswords, helms, shoulders, backs, swords, etc). You would have access to any skin you saved to your character. Then to use the skin you would just go to the equipment manager, and click on the item you want to change the skin of.

Note: Item sets and skins would not be account bound, except for achievement reward skins or event skins such as jade weapons, wind catchers, etc.

Example: Click on the helmet in your equipment manager, and it would bring up every helmet skin you acquired and you choose the one you want to use.

There should also be an option to create item sets and name them. So, you would choose each item skin you want for the set, name it, and save. Then you can just change your gear on the fly, and wouldn’t need to go looking through bags or banks for the items you are looking for.

A. Fees

I still think there should be a fee for this feature. I think the best option would to use transmutation stones or coin in order to save an item skin to your character, and another fee to save a complete item set.

This system would make it worth while to go out and obtain all types of armor skins for each character. For a game that is using horizontal progression, a feature like this is really needed.

The current system is just not a good one, as it is hard to obtain transmutation crystals, you destroy items in the process, and having skins linked to items themselves is just not a good option. Also, the UI for the transmutation process just doesn’t look that great either.

2. Miniatures

I like how there is a collectible page for the miniatures, but I don’t think it should be in your bank. I think the miniatures should be account bound, and be displayed on your hero panel for easy access.

3. Dyes

I mostly like the current dye system, but I think there should be a system in place where you can use dyes that are on other characters for a small fee. Or possible allow us to pay gems to use all dyes from a certain character. Collecting 415 dyes on multiple characters, seems a bit too much.

In the dye system there could be an option where it shows dyes on account, and if its on another character you would have to pay a coin fee based on the rarity of the dye.

Conclusion

This is just a few things I think should be changed or added to the hero panel to make Guild Wars 2 a more enjoyable game. The main one would be the item set feature, which I think should’ve been added to the game long ago.

+1 to all. Great ideas, especially the shared dyes.

Great ideas, especially with skins. I always have the creeping fear that I’ll accidentally delete an item that has a skin I want to keep or overwrite one without thinking. I’d love to be able to just get all the skins I’ve already obtained easily, just like the achievement point ones.

This man is a hero. +1

I am with you all the way! I think these improvements would be greeted with a lot of positive feedback by the gamers.

However, additionally I would like to suggest that certain skins, namely those that are part of your character creation process (i.e. the Necromancer’s / Mesmer’s mask, the Thief’s headarmor, Warrior’s shoulderpads/helmet) should be available from that skin tab as well, either to be unlocked by gold, achievements, gems, laurels, karma… whatever floats your boat.

I admit I am rather selfish in this request – I’ve been grooming and transmutating my thief’s hood up to level 60, only to end up making a very upsetting transmutation mistake. :/ On the other hand, I cannot be the only person who has made a certain style decision during character creation process and ended up accidentally ruining it.

Thanks for the replies, hopefully we will see some of these changes soon.

Irish.3910:

1. Item Sets / Skins
2. Miniatures
3. Dyes

1. The issue with the sets is that Transmutation Crystals and the newly added Transmutation Splitters are probably top sellers among the Gem Store items. So making them go away would be kinda suicidal. And let me tell you, the last thing you want to do is add a mechanic that a lot of people want and throw in a gem cost on it. That’s kinda like getting a sound effect with a “Have you tried buying Gems today?” pop up on your screen every time you log in.
2. Minis are nice, but since they’re limited to using one at a time and they have no additional functionality, I’m not really sure that adding the ability to use them whenever we please would see much use.
3. Dyes are another big seller, especially limited stuff like the Flame and Frost dyes. And have you seen how low most of the common quality dyes are? The pricy ones are pricy for a reason. I don’t think we need to make them account bound.

And before I get ad hominem thrown at me, let me just put this out here. My main has unlocked 348 out of the possibly 394 colours, with 62 (out of 82) of those being rares. Out of my 1080 hours played, 800 are on that main.

I vote for this!

I think a better idea for miniatures would be to make an equipment slot for them so that you can “equip” a mini. This mini will automatically displayed around you and can be enabled/disabled like backpieces or headpieces.

The other ideas are great!