Guild Wars 2

So I tried to mix TA armor with cultural sets and I found it quite frustrating because TA armor doesn’t seem to react to light sources in game the same way as cultural does.
Best example are dark areas where TA parts look very dark, to the point you can’t really tell apart the dyes, while cultural parts stay much brighter and you can still see all the details.
I guess this happens because cultural armor has that shiny, planty surface and TA one does not.
Do you think it would be a good idea to rework TA set to be more similar to cultural, making mixing sets easier?

i know your problem, you may have a look at my experiences with mixed armor.

it is not only a medium armor issue.
i will vote for a rework, either one or the other way round

It’s not just medium, the issue stems from the sylvari cultural armor having a natural glow (even without the glow patterns) so it isn’t affected by light the same way other armors are.

Compare the below, the lower half is cultural armor, the middle and shoulders are TA armor and the helmet is draconic, both the draconic and the TA armor have the same darkness and colour distortion going on but the cultural armor basically retains it’s usual colours.

Will 100% agree that is is annoying though.,

Cultural armor works like sylvari skin, so it doesn’t darken when the ambient light is low— skin doesn’t seem to change so much with the light, for whatever reason.

I went for full T3 cultural on my felmale thief, except the helm (basic thief hood) and gloves. Cultural T3 medium sylvari gloves are horribly overpriced compared to how visible they are, so I use TA gloves instead and I can report the same, it’s much darker than the cultural armor.

Now if you read this ANet, don’t you touch the cultural armor! They are close to perfect the way they are and making sylvari as a race really unique with these armors living together with the person. Instead, TA armors could use some tuning. It’s very strange that the flower using the brightest possible green color on the right glove is almost grey, dead at night, while the identical looking flower backpiece (from Southsun Cove living world collection) is bright and full of life, along with the rest of my armor. I’m not saying that TA armor should get a glowing effect, that always should be an exclusive to sylvari, because the light comes from them, not the armor. But making lighter colors look just a bit lighter at night on TA armor would be a welcome change. Not in general, but specific parts, like flowers, end of a pointly leaf (see above the heavy armor pic from Protoavis.9107).

Just took another screen demonstrating the night issue more clearly since it’s a full body.