Guild Wars 2

So with the 10/29/2013 Patch Syvari cultural armor got a update to add more glow which some people love and other’s hate. Sence Kristen lurks in the Syvari Forums from time to time i think its best we give Her Feedback on this issue here so she can see how we feel about the changes made may it be for better or for worse. I also feel that we can help her improve the set’s with out having her revert the changes that made some armor look better then they were originally. I know their other threads out there about this topic but lets start off on a clean slate on topic be sure to post your screen and concerns about the changes made.

Personally i like the changes to my t3 light others don’t exactly see it the same way i do but thats what being human is about opinions.The only concern i sympathise with is that the change was made without warning and unannounced i feel that changes good or bad to any armor of this magnitude should be discussed by the developer with the players. Some players have their endgame based around collecting skins and using stones to give their character the most amazing look possible others like a state grind but in this case the endgame is collecting/customization so with that lets get started.

I’m perfectly happy with the update, but I’m speaking as someone who has T3 medium. All they did was add some glow to the cracks in the bark-style leggings, which I don’t mind at all.

I feel bad for the T3 light people, but haven’t heard of any complaints for the T3 medium change.

Personally do not like the change. Here are the before (top) and after (bottom) pictures. The dyes are the exact same in both pictures. Nothing was touched. This is tier 3 medium armor.

Huh, I hadn’t noticed. >.> I’ll have to take a closer look at my Sylvari necro (who’s currently decked out in T1 Light) and see if anything’s changed.

I don’t mind it that much personally, but I think its just disappointing that such drastic changes had to be made to some sets just in order for them to glow.

WatchTheShow.7203:

Personally do not like the change. Here are the before (top) and after (bottom) pictures. The dyes are the exact same in both pictures. Nothing was touched. This is tier 3 medium armor.

Well you gotta choose contrasting colors if you wanna see them. I went with a dark color for my leggings and a bright color for the “cracks” of the bark.

I really liked playing around with a new dye slot, before I only had 1 color choice for the leggings, but now there’s a new one just for the glow.
Picture on the left is the new one, you can obviously tell which parts are the newly added glow spots. Picture on the right is pre-update, with only 1 color option for leggings.

PS: I think the glow update messed with how dyes show up now, I’m using the same dyes but there is a marked difference in the hue. I can’t quite put my finger on it but I couldn’t replicate my previous dye combo today.

My ranger has (medium, of course) Tier three and; I like the concept of the new change however it does not go well with my colour scheme, Which is midnight blue with Iris as a secondary colour, now the midnight blue is much lighter and duller than it was previously and you can almost not see the iris except at night, Now heres my personal problem with my armour at night, The glow colour (iris) does not match, or not even nearly match my own glow colour (blurple) and is glowing more of a baby purple. (or white glow under the purple colour) where as before I had my armour colours matching my skin and glow colours. (also my nightmare armour doesn’t seem to really be effected so now my boots and gloves are way darker than my coat and leggings. Haha…Ha…)

If you see what I mean by glow colour not matching at all. ^ ^

Just thought I would copy paste what Kristen Perry wrote in the Gw2 discussion forum regarding the changes (in case someone haven’t seen it):

Kristen Perry.5260:

I originally started typing up a big post about explanations and reasons and theories, but I think that they’d get in the way of the point I’m trying to make, so I’ll keep it as concise as I can.

What is:
Glow mask areas remove the shiny effect beneath them in the current system.

The armor glow and skin glow are two different systems. The only control currently possible is through the armor dye of that area.

What will be:
Textures: I’ll get the textures to work like they used to. By this, I mean they can go back to darker and have their gradients as much as I can while keeping the glow.

Dye Masks: I will get them to behave more like the old shapes, but you’ll still see some tweaks because of the glow. I see a couple folks mentioning dye masks being removed. This was unintentional and I’ll look into it.

Glow Shape: I can minimize some of the glow layer shape in the texture so it doesn’t affect the broadness of specular as much. You’ll get most of your shiny leaves back.

What I’m working on:
The glow isn’t as rich and saturated as one would predict. This wasn’t touched and is not a part of the texture or dye files, even though the dye shape is now controllable. There may be a way to get this changed on the shader, but it would only affect cultural armor and nightmare court stuff, not any clothing.

The glow can get to be more aligned to the color. If you dye the shape blood red, it will glow like a traffic light. If you dye it dark red, it’ll glow dark red. If you dye it pink, it will glow pink. If you dye it white, it will blow out so bright. …if you dye it black or dark dark dark, it’ll barely glow if at all.

By dying it dark, you can effectively artificially “mostly turn off” the glow. This is the biggest middle ground while still giving the people who love the glow their choice as well.

Thanks everyone for your feedback on this change. I tried my best to explain this system and what I’m working on, but there are technical elements and nuances that are fairly complex to describe. Note that any changes I could make will not get into the game the next build release. But they may get into the build after that. Now back to work for me. :}