Guild Wars 2

They missed the boat by making unique armors “cultural”/race specific instead of “cultural/factional”.

For example, if my Norn moved to Divinity Reach, curried favor with humans, did all kinds of little favors for them, built up reputation and faction.. she could realistically expect them to “make me armor that looks like that”. ANET chose not to go that route, unfortunately.

In games that offer “factional” perks, they become long term goals and give you the feeling of having earned items.

It’s one thing to say, “I bought Asuran Armor for my Charr.” Tis another to say “I assisted the Asura so much, they insisted on crafting a set of Asura-styled armor to fit a Charr, just for me.”

They did it for many armors in GW1. Lux, Kurz, all of the EoTN armors took reputation points.

So my thoughts are, Cultural armor as a simple purchase option open to any. NO.

Cultural-styled armor that has to be earned by in game actions and reputation? Sure.

LOL have you not been reading the forums at all? Anet just tried this and the backlash was phenomenal (and rightly so).

In my opinion, this should never happen. Yes to new armor skins, no to changing cultural armors.

Jrunyon.3012:

LOL have you not been reading the forums at all? Anet just tried this and the backlash was phenomenal (and rightly so).

In my opinion, this should never happen. Yes to new armor skins, no to changing cultural armors.

Backlash was insane because Cultural Armor 2.0 cost 60 gold to make vs 1.0 that costs 160 gold when you as in the 10 transmute crystals to get the skin on good stats. It was also insane because it was one race’s armor. If you were human you just got a new effect, every other race got an entirely new armor set.

If they redid this so that every racial armor was reworked to be universal for the same cost the amount of happy people would greatly outweigh the upset.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Cultural-styled armor that has to be earned by in game actions and reputation? Sure.

Ah yes, I remember those. That’s actually a good idea.

Jrunyon.3012:

LOL have you not been reading the forums at all? Anet just tried this and the backlash was phenomenal (and rightly so).

In my opinion, this should never happen. Yes to new armor skins, no to changing cultural armors.

Most of the complaints that I read weren’t solely because they opened a cultural armor to all races, but because it was opened to all races AND much cheaper than the original, with updated visuals on top of that. The issue was more about fairness. 1 race’s cultural armor being open to all while none of the other races’ are was the problem.

I don’t really agree with making tier culti sets available to other races; because it’s what is cool that that race- aside from the race itself being different. It’s the only thing that to me GW has retained because in GW1 armors were profession based, Necros didn’t get ele armor, Mesmers didn’t wear ritualist armor- the only way you could have the same armor as another is if you played the exact same profession & that I appreciated.

I’d be bummed if other light armors of diff races wore the Tier 3 set my Asura Ele wears. Because then it wouldn’t really be unique and why did I go for trying to look different in armor in the 1st place?

I do like the idea of being to work in game towards gain trust with a faction and then being able to craft cultural armor. Much like the Kurz/Luxon system in GW1. It should be a long term accomplishment though and maybe a limit on how many factions you can ally with. I don’t think people would be terribly upset about that as a feature as a player would a. have to grind the faction’s trust and then b. have to actually buy the expensive cultural armor.

Mr Pin.6728:

I do like the idea of being to work in game towards gain trust with a faction and then being able to craft cultural armor. Much like the Kurz/Luxon system in GW1. It should be a long term accomplishment though and maybe a limit on how many factions you can ally with. I don’t think people would be terribly upset about that as a feature as a player would a. have to grind the faction’s trust and then b. have to actually buy the expensive cultural armor.

I like this idea as well.

It’s hard to say, My proposal has been stated in a couple other threads but I will reiterate it briefly here:

Make a 4th set of “cultural” gear for all races in some future update. Use previous designs to inspire these sets, don’t merely plagiarize it.

These sets should be essentially a “gift” from one race to another. A sign of cooperation and respect, from norn to asura, charr to human, and so forth. Dungeon gear essentially fills this role, but fails to capitalize on two counts. One, it doesn’t help Anet financially. Two, instead of representing the 5 great races of Tyria, many dungeon sets have other themes.
So, say for example I really like the amazing design of human t3 light armor. As a designer I want other races to have something similar, something to represent some fictional human tailor’s appreciation of his female Norn elementalist friend. First I take the cut of the top, the cut of the cloth into a bikini top is acceptable for both races without sacrificing the uniqueness of actual existing t3. The gems that hang from it however, will be changed. A single large gem now hangs in its place. For the pants, I keep the long flowing robes, but change the swiss cheese like holes to another pattern and cover the tiny spot of visible hips. In this method, I slowly warp the design to a new albeit pleasing aesthetic that still looks like a human designed it, but is a gift to all races. In this method, you can take any of the neat cultural armor designs and create a new armor set that honors the race that wears it rather than plagiarizing it. After all, what human ranger wouldn’t love a set similar to Eir’s wolfborn inspired clothes? Cultural gifts, available to all could celebrate what makes Tyria so cool and make Anet some good money. (It would be great for Wintersday, but I doubt they have time to make that many sets so soon.)

Chasind.3128:

I don’t really agree with making tier culti sets available to other races; because it’s what is cool that that race- aside from the race itself being different. It’s the only thing that to me GW has retained because in GW1 armors were profession based, Necros didn’t get ele armor, Mesmers didn’t wear ritualist armor- the only way you could have the same armor as another is if you played the exact same profession & that I appreciated.

I’d be bummed if other light armors of diff races wore the Tier 3 set my Asura Ele wears. Because then it wouldn’t really be unique and why did I go for trying to look different in armor in the 1st place?

I completely understand. Think about it though, do u really feel that unique as an Asura Ele with T3? I wear it too on my Asura Ele, it looks awesome, but I already see a lot of light armored asura wearing the same armor as you and me. I believe the only real way to get close to being unique in the game(aesthetically) is to mix and match, which is the reason I value having more options for mix and matching more than I value race uniqueness.

Mr Pin.6728:

I do like the idea of being to work in game towards gain trust with a faction and then being able to craft cultural armor. Much like the Kurz/Luxon system in GW1. It should be a long term accomplishment though and maybe a limit on how many factions you can ally with. I don’t think people would be terribly upset about that as a feature as a player would a. have to grind the faction’s trust and then b. have to actually buy the expensive cultural armor.

Absolutely this. They need to implement a reputation system and allow players to actually earn their cultural armors. Getting cultural armor should be a memorable event and a milestone in your character’s development – not another reason to farm gold.

I’d also love it if the skins unlocked in a similar fashion to the achievement point skins once you hit the necessary reputation threshold.

I will be so kitten ed if they removed the race restriction for cultural armor. I chose female human thief for the sole purpose of looking at that hemisphere. If there is no race restriction, I would’ve chose norn since norn’s breast is the same size as a human’s head.

Ping.5739:

I will be so kitten ed if they removed the race restriction for cultural armor. I chose female human thief for the sole purpose of looking at that hemisphere. If there is no race restriction, I would’ve chose norn since norn’s breast is the same size as a human’s head.

Idk, that cleavage on the T1 Med is pretty juicy.

I think ArenaNet should remove all the races except Humans, and then work on Humans only.

Imagine all the customisation and armours we can have if ArenaNet only worked with one player model.

I definitely do NOT want this. We need more race and profession specific stuffs, not less.

Firstly, I’d say this is the way to go after what happened with the Flamekissed armor issue, instead of one group of the community making snide remarks about each other in the aftermath of a dev response. I was actually thinking that we should instead discuss on the matter of racial/categorical restriction on cosmetics.

To matter at hand though, I would choose to opt for having cultural restrictions. People talk about uniqueness and exclusivity. Those are to me good points to consider but mainly, I opt for said restrictions because of a matter of rewards, as well as choice and consequence. I look at the tier 3 culturals as a possible choice reward for playing a particular race. It’s the “pros” to consider when you decide on the choice of which race should your toon be.

And as with choice there will be consequences. I think for a game, choice and consequences are a good thing to have. Call it having… depth.. or character. So when you decide on a race for a toon, you would have then decided with the knowledge that some options are now available to you (and those that chose the same as you, regardless of how few or many they are) while some options will without doubt now be denied to you.

Making any choice to have access all rewards with no consequence feels cheap for me. (And please, dont equate my saying “cheap” to simply meaning monetary value be it in game or real life )

Rynn.1324:

I definitely do NOT want this. We need more race and profession specific stuffs, not less.

Agree with this ^ 100%+

Take out the uniqueness from the game, it gets dull really quick. Then everyone will be wearing what the next guy or race has. Just one mass look alike, ew.

I personally always felt that part of choosing your race was choosing the cultural armor too. If that was an armor you wanted. If you wanted a Human set you’d roll a human, same goes for Norn, etc.

I totally understand wanting to open it up to everyone. And I think that having a faction based system and potentially allowing access that way could be something to considered.

But at the same time I think it takes away the “choice” needed to be made when a person makes a racial decision. I think if you take out that factor then there is little factor into the decision other then cosmetics and potentially skills. Which most people will still factor their character design over what armor is accessible to them in the long run. At least thats what I feel I have seen in this game since launch.

At the same time letting everyone have access to the armor isn’t going to make it more unique. Maybe in terms of mixing and matching. But not so many people do that. And in the long run it will be just as common if not more common then what we see already among races.

If anything we just need to see more cultural armor/armor in general released to the game. There has generally not been a lot offered in the past year then I think that people need.

If they had “cultural” armor that was available to all races from the very beginning, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

However, what they did in the beginning was to create separate, unique armor for each of the races. Then they made the highest tier of that armor prohibitively expensive (for a lot of people) so that it was obvious when you saw someone in it that they had made a lot of money and put forth some effort in getting it (even if the effort involved a credit card.)

So now we have individuals running around in Human T3 armor from the gem shop. (Yes, I know it’s temporary.) In general, I don’t mind that I saw a Norn with Human armor. The issue I had was never that it was in the TP. The issue I had was that Humans were singled out.

The thing is that ANet designed the game with racial armor, so that’s the way it should stay. If they had designed the game with the idea that every race could get every armor, then I would agree with the OP.

I wouldn’t have a problem with racial/cultural armor could be obtained through some sort of rep obtaining mechanism. What I would want is for this to be in stone and not have a workaround like Order Armor sets. Give us something to work for.

The gem store item set (Flamekissed) and it’s basic likeness to Human T3 was poor judgment imo because not only did only one set get singled out but it went for basically 100g cheaper. Didn’t make sense to me. Never mind the fact that these new skins are reskins as I think that on one hand that’s completely lackadaisical one year in, but on the other I understand as Armor creation can’t be easy time wise when trying to do for multiple races/body types/multi genders and such. Then after thinking of that I am reminded that we have the sets like Magic Tech and the Aetherblade stuff or the Town clothes we have received.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

They missed the boat by making unique armors “cultural”/race specific instead of “cultural/factional”.

For example, if my Norn moved to Divinity Reach, curried favor with humans, did all kinds of little favors for them, built up reputation and faction.. she could realistically expect them to “make me armor that looks like that”. ANET chose not to go that route, unfortunately.

In games that offer “factional” perks, they become long term goals and give you the feeling of having earned items.

It’s one thing to say, “I bought Asuran Armor for my Charr.” Tis another to say “I assisted the Asura so much, they insisted on crafting a set of Asura-styled armor to fit a Charr, just for me.”

They did it for many armors in GW1. Lux, Kurz, all of the EoTN armors took reputation points.

So my thoughts are, Cultural armor as a simple purchase option open to any. NO.

Cultural-styled armor that has to be earned by in game actions and reputation? Sure.

I like this.

Grimrist.3917:

Chasind.3128:

I don’t really agree with making tier culti sets available to other races; because it’s what is cool that that race- aside from the race itself being different. It’s the only thing that to me GW has retained because in GW1 armors were profession based, Necros didn’t get ele armor, Mesmers didn’t wear ritualist armor- the only way you could have the same armor as another is if you played the exact same profession & that I appreciated.

I’d be bummed if other light armors of diff races wore the Tier 3 set my Asura Ele wears. Because then it wouldn’t really be unique and why did I go for trying to look different in armor in the 1st place?

I completely understand. Think about it though, do u really feel that unique as an Asura Ele with T3? I wear it too on my Asura Ele, it looks awesome, but I already see a lot of light armored asura wearing the same armor as you and me. I believe the only real way to get close to being unique in the game(aesthetically) is to mix and match, which is the reason I value having more options for mix and matching more than I value race uniqueness.

Having a full set of anything, no you aren’t totally unique. However take into account that, for example, only human’s can use t3 human cultural. Now take my mesmer as an example. All of her armor is mix and match, and the piece that sets it apart distinctly is the human cultural armor pieces.

Even the mix and match armor set ups get copied eventually if it’s common armor. I see clones of players all the time in the same mix-match armor. The armor pieces that are more exclusive to player choice (race, order, even gender) it’s those armor set ups that stand out.

I would like for there to be some semblance of uniqueness between the races, and currently cultural armor is it.

Edit: A quote from a Reddit user on the matter of cultural armor’s that is relevant to my point; “I totally understand the outrage even though I am personally not effect by it. Most of my characters are Norn and one of the biggest draw was the cultural armors. Often I get asked the mix-match sets and tbh, it feels great to be have a norn character when you tell them, that stag helm is for us norn only:P. I would be very unsatisfied if one day they are available for every race.”

I do not want them to remove the restrictions on cultural armor. Its one of the few things in the game that is racial-locked, and I’d certainly like it to remain (and for there to be even more of it, honestly).

I want races to feel individual. And since the devs don’t want to make the racial skills too good (which I can see the reasoning for) that pretty much just leaves aesthetics. Since aesthetics is one of the major things there is between races, they need to keep as much separation as possible in that one aspect. Not diminish it.

I look at it this way you chose your race at the start of the game for the start of the story but you chose how you look base off of the player. A kind of you cant chose how your born but you can chose how you live point of view. This hits another point you chose at the start of the game before you can look at how high level cultural armor even looks there is a risk for new players to not chose the “right” races of there liking for the armor.
There also a question of why should only armor be restricted why not have cultural weapons restricted?
I am all for opening up Armors for all races it would add a lot more mix of how ppl look and open up many skins for ppl to play with.

Sylvari cultural armor on a Charr would be so awesome.

I want Leafy-cat!

LEAFY-CAT NAOWWWWW!

Pro Re-skinning
First I would like to state that I am not only completely fine with having alternate versions of cultural armor (or any armor), I actually encourage more alternate variations to be released that have different elements removed or added. Options for appearances are crucial to myself any many other players to fully enjoy this game. Ideally I would prefer the alternate appearances and elements of cultural armors to be able to be toggled off and on as well as being fully dyeable. I do not see offering alternate forms of existing armors (re-skinning) as being lazy, but as a way to offer us, the players, with many more options to achieve the look we desire within existing armor designs. I fully understand what goes into designing an entirely new armor set in this game and I do not mind the long time it can take when creating them, but take your time and do them right to justify the gem cost (non-human character elements fully considered; charr horns/tail, asura ears/toes). While new designs are being created, offer us more variations of existing designs and a way to customize elements of them so they are not simply cookie-cutter static designs.

Anti-Cultural Armor
I’m actually against the concept of cultural armor as armor designs should have already been culturally designed from the start. An armor worn on a charr should not have the same appearance as that armor on a human only stretched out to fit their non-human body. I’m not saying that every single armor in the game should have a uniquely designed appearance based on the species/gender wearing it, that would take forever to design. However, that human armor could easily have slight tweaks made to it to make it appear more like what a charr would actually wear; remove the sleeves and show off those powerful furry arms, remove the backs of the legs so they’re more like covers/chaps and not form-fitting and fur-constricting pants. Give each piece of an armor design (base human most likely) one hour of attention and it can be made more appropriate for non-human species, thus removing the need for “cultural” armor and allowing all armor for that species to be appropriate for them.

I’m also against the retaining of armor weight class restrictions in a non-trinity mmorpg, but that’s another argument entirely.

Pro-Class Armor
I am, however, completely for armor designs that are restricted to only being available to each class through their class trainers. In their current form, having an individual trainer for each class serves absolutely no purpose. Players do not learn new skills from these trainers and the trait manuals are completely generic in that any class can use each manual tier regardless of where it was acquired (TP/a manual my thief got from their trainer can be used by my mesmer). Class trainers also do not even offer a unique service of resetting traits. There are ‘Trait Reset’ NPCs whose only purpose is to reset traits regardless of your class. And with the new single-use trait reset items, one does not have to even visit an NPC to reset their traits.

In my cultural situation resolution proposal I outlined making the cultural armors available on the Gem Store and switching to Class Armor. It would also implement the ability for past and future Gem Store armors to be infinite use for a fee of unlocking the Base Skin (Cultural 1.0) so players that want the 1.0 pay what the players paid for their Cultural 1.0 skins and they would also already have it unlocked as they already bought it. My proposal offered a way to make everyone happy without trivializing the time or money earned and spent on Cultural 1.0 armors, as well as retaining armor sets that are restricted, but to class instead of species. The Class Armors could even be GW1 class armors ported or re-envisioned for GW2, which would also make even more players happy that some GW1 skins would finally return. It still needed slight tweaks, but I see the concepts as sound and every single person is covered.

Nobody gets slighted, nothing gets removed, restricted armor ‘mechanic’ remains, desired features get implemented, more appearance options available for every player, Anet sees increased Gem Store revenue, stagnant/half-implemented game aspects receive purpose… It was a win for everyone.

Keep race armor to their respective races, and use it as an excuse to actually fix clipping issues.

Why do Charr clip with their own armor? Why do Sylvari stretch with their own armor? Bullkitten…

Kain Francois.4328:

Keep race armor to their respective races, and use it as an excuse to actually fix clipping issues.

Why do Charr clip with their own armor? Why do Sylvari stretch with their own armor? Bullkitten…

Pretty much why do charr cultural clip I am down right anal about my armor clipping. I cant stand it at all. Any game not just this one I cant stand clipping drives me beyond crazy. Clipping issue is the number 1 reason I dont roll a charr there are only a handful of sets that work with out clipping.

I’d say no, keep them as they are. Also, we need a race-locked fourth weapon tier.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

They missed the boat by making unique armors “cultural”/race specific instead of “cultural/factional”.

For example, if my Norn moved to Divinity Reach, curried favor with humans, did all kinds of little favors for them, built up reputation and faction.. she could realistically expect them to “make me armor that looks like that”. ANET chose not to go that route, unfortunately.

In games that offer “factional” perks, they become long term goals and give you the feeling of having earned items.

It’s one thing to say, “I bought Asuran Armor for my Charr.” Tis another to say “I assisted the Asura so much, they insisted on crafting a set of Asura-styled armor to fit a Charr, just for me.”

They did it for many armors in GW1. Lux, Kurz, all of the EoTN armors took reputation points.

So my thoughts are, Cultural armor as a simple purchase option open to any. NO.

Cultural-styled armor that has to be earned by in game actions and reputation? Sure.

I couldn’t agree more. The way the did a lot of things frankly, bottle my mind. You’d think they would’ve made better “time sinks” then just mindless gold and mat grinds.

I’m all for the reasoning behind time sinks and in game goals. But only if it’s done correctly. This far they’ve done it all kitten backwards starting with legendaries and the fact that they’re tradeable and not tied into your personal story quest. Then top it off with not having any factions outside of the 3 in story mode which aren’t really factions to begin with. Nothing can change those facts now and they’re definitely never going to make cultural armor obtainable for every race. It’s too much work and they’re too busy doing other useless things like trying to implement more useless gears grinds in ascended armors…

I want this so much. I understand some people roll races specifically for the armor. I really do understand that. In fact, I’ve done it. But to be honest, it’s not the race I’d really be playing if I could choose. I’m so in love with specific armors that I have to limit my race choice if I want to wear them.

I honestly don’t see what is wrong with adding more options. I suppose it would take away some exclusiveness, yes. I don’t see much exclusiveness to be honest though when every other character is wearing their race/class’s tier armor already anyway, etc. If I look around Divinity’s Reach, I see a million humans in cloth T3 (I myself own it.) People have argued that if we unlock the ability to wear other cultural armors, we’d have less ability to be unique. I don’t think that’s the case at all, though.

For every, say, Sylvari caster who would go out and purchase human tier 3 cloth, there’d probably be a human who would purchase Asura cultural or something. It would mix and match and simply give more options to customize your character. We already breech racial exclusivity by offering very cultural-appearing armor from dungeons, as well as allowing any race to equip another culture’s specific weapons via karma (or in some cases simple world drops or TP).

I honestly was so ridiculously giddy when I first saw the Flamekissed set on the gem store. I hadn’t yet thought about how much of a slap in the face it was being cheaper than the previous tier set or anything. (And I’d purchased human T3 myself previously.) My first thought was joy that they might actually be paving the way to either unlocking cultural for all or at least offering some variation of them for anyone to wishes to purchase them. The removal of the armor proves that this is probably never, ever, ever, ever (to the power of ten) going to happen now, though.

Oh, and PS: for the argument that it would be just plain weird for, say, a Charr to wear a Sylvari set, while it would be unusual, it might not be impossible. There is always an exception to a rule. As a roleplayer, I admire well done exceptions to what is standard. A human could have spent years among the Asura, working with one as a partner out in the field or something on a collaborative goal/project. They might swap styles or influence each other. A Norn may have adopted an abandoned Charr cub and raised them, etc. Who knows. Just as every race can be every class despite lore typically saying they might not be (ie Charr guardians, etc), people still enjoy playing those race/class combos (because options are cool!) and sometimes even find a way to make it work quite well within lore. Not to mention that if one culture is exposed to another, they may be inspired by their ways/appearance and some individuals might wish to imitate/take on that lifestyle or clothing style etc.

TL;DR No race exists in a vacuum and I’m sure various individuals would be influenced by the other races and the rich culture they possess. Tyria is a place of stories, legends, and travelers. It would make sense for these exceptional travelers (ie our player characters) to find joy in some of the new people, places, and cultures we meet along the way.

At this point, I’ll take any armor changes I can get. I just want them to do kittening anything.

Either add in more varied options (i.e. no more kittening trench coats) for each armor category or take what’s in the game now and find a way to open it up to more people. I mean kitten , if they can’t be bothered to do something new, there’s plenty of stuff already available in the game that people would like to wear, but can’t due to race/class choice.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

So my thoughts are, Cultural armor as a simple purchase option open to any. NO.

Cultural-styled armor that has to be earned by in game actions and reputation? Sure.

I wouldn’t mind any of that. Only problem I had with the current is that:

• If you make it cultural armour, there’s no way you can reskin it and sell it as something else, yet a lot cheaper and not exclusive to 1 single race.

I’d be okay if they let us earn allegiance and wear all cultural armour after earning allegiance.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

They missed the boat by making unique armors “cultural”/race specific instead of “cultural/factional”.

For example, if my Norn moved to Divinity Reach, curried favor with humans, did all kinds of little favors for them, built up reputation and faction.. she could realistically expect them to “make me armor that looks like that”. ANET chose not to go that route, unfortunately.

In games that offer “factional” perks, they become long term goals and give you the feeling of having earned items.

It’s one thing to say, “I bought Asuran Armor for my Charr.” Tis another to say “I assisted the Asura so much, they insisted on crafting a set of Asura-styled armor to fit a Charr, just for me.”

They did it for many armors in GW1. Lux, Kurz, all of the EoTN armors took reputation points.

So my thoughts are, Cultural armor as a simple purchase option open to any. NO.

Cultural-styled armor that has to be earned by in game actions and reputation? Sure.

YES!!!!
This would really resolve the problem.

Make it buyable for the given race, but make them achivable by others after some quest, reputation, etc. Maybe doing some maps or be just the legendary heroe who did whole map and personal story (don’t jump on how hard it should be – its a general idea.).

Anyway, there should be an additional way to be able to use those armors.

I’m after more and more variety and maybe some new achievements/quest in here.

Jrunyon.3012:

LOL have you not been reading the forums at all? Anet just tried this and the backlash was phenomenal (and rightly so).

In my opinion, this should never happen. Yes to new armor skins, no to changing cultural armors.

Nope, they made that by mistake.
I really think you should read forums instead.
Only some were saying that that should be exclusive when others were saying that it costs too little and they don’t like the revamp idea.

As mentionned, dungeon armors are really race-specific. I still wonder why the Flame Legion have armors for asuras, yet the black citadel vendors dislike the idea.

Same goes for female wear Sons of Svanir armor somehow.

I personnaly don’t think armor is really a part of race uniqueness. A human can wear a Twilight Arbor armor, so how does that make sylvari really unique, for exemple? Everyone can wear leaves, but only one kind.

I agree the fact I want cultural armor for everyone is very personnal: my character is young norn, so as young norns have human bodies, I play a “human”. AND the T2 medium skirt is really cool.

I have played this game since beta and have constantly wondered about why armor is so ridiculously limited. There is an x-amount of comments for and against it, but you know what, if my character is a human and wears an asuran variant armor, are you going to care? Does it effect how YOU play the game, or are you just QQ’ing because I have armor similar to you. Reality is we have a very limited armor pool, new armors are just reworked, or quite frankly hideous. I can guarantee though that no-one in the game but me has the exact combination of pieces and dyes that I have on my characters. So who does it hurt to diversify our armor choices? No-one.

On the talk of factional benefits, bring on a gw1 style of rewards or tiers of rewards. We have the order of whispers, pact, durmand priory, and vigil. As well as the races. Been waiting for it to come along.

I agree with getting rid of restrictions of Cultural armor. I always thought it was silly.

Substance E.4852:

Jrunyon.3012:

LOL have you not been reading the forums at all? Anet just tried this and the backlash was phenomenal (and rightly so).

In my opinion, this should never happen. Yes to new armor skins, no to changing cultural armors.

Backlash was insane because Cultural Armor 2.0 cost 60 gold to make vs 1.0 that costs 160 gold when you as in the 10 transmute crystals to get the skin on good stats. It was also insane because it was one race’s armor. If you were human you just got a new effect, every other race got an entirely new armor set.

If they redid this so that every racial armor was reworked to be universal for the same cost the amount of happy people would greatly outweigh the upset.

I was not as much upset for gold as i was because it was meant to be race exclusive.

To OP: I disagree op and would say this is bad idea.
Why don’t you consider that a lot of players bought it for the reason because it was unique to the race. And now you want anet to change that, why, because of your own selfish reasons?

If you want more armors, ask them for new armors. But good luck with that.

And while you are at it, please make racial skills available to all races.

Also, allow any race to start in any city.

Oh! And please, make voice acting race-wide so I can put an Asura voice in a Silvary.

And if you can allow me to be a Charr with human appearance, now, that will be great.

After all, who need variety when we all can look the same

daimasei.4091:

And while you are at it, please make racial skills available to all races.

Also, allow any race to start in any city.

Oh! And please, make voice acting race-wide so I can put an Asura voice in a Silvary.

And if you can allow me to be a Charr with human appearance, now, that will be great.

After all, who need variety when we all can look the same

You can start in any starting zone you want. It’s called going to a nearby city and using the Gates. Ta da, now you can be a Sylvari in the human starting area. gasp
You don’t choose your voice-acting. All male and female of each individual race has the same voice actor. All Human females sound the same, all male humans sound the same.
You can roll a Charr that looks like a human. It’s called rolling a human. There are no racial differences except for appearances. Everyone gets the same class choices, same access to the rest of the armor. The only difference is racial skills, which amounts to all of about six skills. Most of which are healing. And they’re all on par with one another.

So in fact, the game is already homogenized, save for cultural armor, racial skills (which you lose in PVP), and appearances. Your only leg to stand on is the racial skills. Oh, and personal stories, which you failed to mention.

After reading most of this thread, i have to agree with myself that i agree with those that are for this change and those that are against it… I am all for more choice for players and thus for more armors, at the same time i am all for ‘exclusivity’ to a certain extend, esp. after playing GW1 and seeing how a district filled with ‘the same look’ has a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ to it (hope I spelled that right).

I liked some of the proposals here, and I think both camps can be satisfied in the following manner.

- Make ‘representing a ’race’ part of the gameplay. Or in some sort ‘plead your alliance’ to a race. This could be done by earning ‘racial point’ by doing events in racially assigned area’s. After a certain amount of racial points you will be called (receive an email) from the racial leader, whom will tell you that your actions as a hero have been noted and that chatter in town has echoed your name…

• Obviously this would happen for all the races.

- Once this ‘peoples hero’ status has been attained, you get the option to ‘represent the race’ in the game. This means that you will be able to represent say ‘sylvari’ as a Norn, in all the other areas of the game. Where you will earn more ‘sylvari’ points.

- As you progress you will unlock parts of a 0-tier cultural armorset, at a ‘cultural attaché’. And at a certain status you will indeed have earned the whole set.

! This would mean that Anet would have to create 3 (weight) x 5 (races) = 15 new armorsets, inspired by the races… as:
!! All the current racial sets remain exclusive to the race.

=

It would give everybody access to a certain racial flavour, and together with the dungeon armors would make that 2 flavoured sets available to all, to mix and match. While the races keep their distinct exclusive armors, but with the added pieces to mix and match…

=

In a sense I personally think this whole system could tie in with adding ‘replay value’ to both events and the marked location activities. Mainly, these last could be ‘opened up’ again for as far as earning racial hero status goes. (thus people would not loose 100% map completion ), in the areas that are linked to the races. Then in all the other areas higher in the game, the activity locations could be done for each race. In other words, you could do them 5x for every race once.

I think this would add 5x the replay value, it would give more depth to a character (if the players choses to view it like that, aka. my Charr left the Charr to fight for the humans). While at the same time offering more long term goals. While also opening up that ‘one racial set of each race’ achievement to be obtained on just 1 character.

That is a lot of simply added ‘content’ with a simple system, and a reward that would benefit all players of all races, without meddling with the actual racial armors. And tbqh. it would be even cooler if Anet would mix in some specific ‘personal story’ like instances into the ‘racial representation’. That would also extend the personal story experience, as well as the ‘grind’ the older players would have to endure (aka. it becomes a mix of simply playing, while getting called upon by a certain race to do a racial specific quest.)

Arrelaine.5692:

daimasei.4091:

And while you are at it, please make racial skills available to all races.

Also, allow any race to start in any city.

Oh! And please, make voice acting race-wide so I can put an Asura voice in a Silvary.

And if you can allow me to be a Charr with human appearance, now, that will be great.

After all, who need variety when we all can look the same

You can start in any starting zone you want. It’s called going to a nearby city and using the Gates. Ta da, now you can be a Sylvari in the human starting area. gasp
You don’t choose your voice-acting. All male and female of each individual race has the same voice actor. All Human females sound the same, all male humans sound the same.
You can roll a Charr that looks like a human. It’s called rolling a human. There are no racial differences except for appearances. Everyone gets the same class choices, same access to the rest of the armor. The only difference is racial skills, which amounts to all of about six skills. Most of which are healing. And they’re all on par with one another.

So in fact, the game is already homogenized, save for cultural armor, racial skills (which you lose in PVP), and appearances. Your only leg to stand on is the racial skills. Oh, and personal stories, which you failed to mention.

By voice acting he meant how they sound. Same voice actor can speak in different language, with different tone and dialect, using different words and phrases and more…
You can’t have a charr that looks like human by rolling a human. Is a peach that looks like nectarine a nectarine?
There are racial differences besides appereance – racial skills, elites, quotes, voice, movement, dodging, animations, attitude, home city, starting area, story, lore, DANCE…

serialkicker.5274:

Substance E.4852:

Jrunyon.3012:

LOL have you not been reading the forums at all? Anet just tried this and the backlash was phenomenal (and rightly so).

In my opinion, this should never happen. Yes to new armor skins, no to changing cultural armors.

Backlash was insane because Cultural Armor 2.0 cost 60 gold to make vs 1.0 that costs 160 gold when you as in the 10 transmute crystals to get the skin on good stats. It was also insane because it was one race’s armor. If you were human you just got a new effect, every other race got an entirely new armor set.

If they redid this so that every racial armor was reworked to be universal for the same cost the amount of happy people would greatly outweigh the upset.

To OP: I disagree op and would say this is bad idea.
Why don’t you consider that a lot of players bought it for the reason because it was unique to the race. And now you want anet to change that, why, because of your own selfish reasons?

Grimrist.3917:

Cons:
*All races lose some uniqueness - Losing the exclusivity within each individual race may not sit well with some people. Some people were forced into playing a certain race just to be able to wear the armor they want; the same people may have chosen a different race if these armors weren’t restricted in the first place.

I’m sorry but did you read what I typed at all? I’ll just assume you missed this part where I clearly consider what you’re saying as a con. Anyway, I’m not sure how wanting cultural armors become open to all races is any more selfish than wanting them to stay exclusive.

Grimrist.3917:

serialkicker.5274:

Substance E.4852:

Jrunyon.3012:

LOL have you not been reading the forums at all? Anet just tried this and the backlash was phenomenal (and rightly so).

In my opinion, this should never happen. Yes to new armor skins, no to changing cultural armors.

Backlash was insane because Cultural Armor 2.0 cost 60 gold to make vs 1.0 that costs 160 gold when you as in the 10 transmute crystals to get the skin on good stats. It was also insane because it was one race’s armor. If you were human you just got a new effect, every other race got an entirely new armor set.

If they redid this so that every racial armor was reworked to be universal for the same cost the amount of happy people would greatly outweigh the upset.

To OP: I disagree op and would say this is bad idea.
Why don’t you consider that a lot of players bought it for the reason because it was unique to the race. And now you want anet to change that, why, because of your own selfish reasons?

Grimrist.3917:

Cons:
*All races lose some uniqueness - Losing the exclusivity within each individual race may not sit well with some people. Some people were forced into playing a certain race just to be able to wear the armor they want; the same people may have chosen a different race if these armors weren’t restricted in the first place.

I’m sorry but did you read what I typed at all? I’ll just assume you missed this part where I clearly consider what you’re saying as a con. Anyway, I’m not sure how wanting cultural armors become open to all races is any more selfish than wanting them to stay exclusive.

Tbh i haven’t read whole post, because there is no reason good enough you could give to make your request reasonable.

Well, you can say i’m selfish, but i’m selfish with a good reason. Cultural armor was exclusive since realease and whole point of it was just that. It’s only one armor for each class, one unique armor for each race and you want to take out even that?

Gw2 already lack with the variates between races. Cultural armor is one that is unique to race and might be a reason someone would join the race. Just like classes armor. How many people in beta or lunch of the game fell in love with class just because they saw cool looking armor that class is wearing on “class selection screen”?

In my opinion there should be even more race specific armors and skills and other stuff too, so it would give players more reasons to play other races. A lot of people, my self included, have all their toons human. Why? Because there is not much difference to play as other race, other then if you really want some racial skill or cultural armor or just because of appereance or roleplaying reasons…

mXz.4512:

Rynn.1324:

I definitely do NOT want this. We need more race and profession specific stuffs, not less.

Agree with this ^ 100%+

Take out the uniqueness from the game, it gets dull really quick. Then everyone will be wearing what the next guy or race has. Just one mass look alike, ew.

Agreed also.

If it were taken out, then I’d really like to have some of the racial utility skills on other races, my norn ele could do with some poison field, I’m looking at you asura radition field.

The other thing that’s funny about this, being that t3 human caused it….90% of the armor in game is human inspired. The vast majority of armors you encounter in game you will only encounter on human NPC’s. Most sylvari are in their town clothes/culturals/nightmare court dungeon armor. Same with the asura, norn and Charr. There’s a few exceptions here and there but that doesn’t really alter that the majority of armor was designed with humans in mind and then ported over to the other races. What we can take from this issue (flame kissed) is a general lack of variety of style in the current armor sets available.

There’s a lack of armor variety and there should be greater emphasis on armor variety and armor variety that also reflects the other races of tyria rather than just humans and the bulk of armor designed with them in mind.

While I realize most just reply to the TS instead of reading the whole conversation. I would like to mention to these people just above here that there is more than just a ‘yes/no’ answer to this issue … there are always alternatives that may actually have aspects of most the pro’s and take the con’s into consideration..

EroticAndHeretic.7398:

As mentionned, dungeon armors are really race-specific. I still wonder why the Flame Legion have armors for asuras, yet the black citadel vendors dislike the idea.

Same goes for female wear Sons of Svanir armor somehow.

I personnaly don’t think armor is really a part of race uniqueness. A human can wear a Twilight Arbor armor, so how does that make sylvari really unique, for exemple? Everyone can wear leaves, but only one kind.

I agree the fact I want cultural armor for everyone is very personnal: my character is young norn, so as young norns have human bodies, I play a “human”. AND the T2 medium skirt is really cool.

That is so true.
I understand that cultural armor should be tied to a culture but making it race specific is way too bad.

Really let us work to be prised by a race to get cultural armor…

That would be really cool. I’m dying to know what asura armors would look like on humans

Completely Disagree!

It’s a CULTURAL armor – not the usual anybody can have it stuff. Removing this would take a “special feature” away and make the races even more interchangeable and less unique.

illo.5106:

Completely Disagree!

It’s a CULTURAL armor – not the usual anybody can have it stuff. Removing this would take a “special feature” away and make the races even more interchangeable and less unique.

Indeed, CULTURAL armor. Specific to a CULTURE, not a race.

The feature is special alright, special as in
“Hey your son is talking to a stone!”
“Yea sorry, he’s a bit special”